PREOCCUPATIONS GET ROWDY AT WARSAW

I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of, what I coined, a “hipster mosh pit” until Friday night at Warsaw. Girls in crop tops with glittery eyelids and guys in denim/tablecloth jackets we’re flailing around to no particular rhythm. I thought I was safe, this isn’t a metal mosh pit, I won’t get hurt, these people are wimpy. That’s what I thought until I got pushed into one of the monitors on stage and jammed my right finger, breaking off part of the nail. The band that caused this chaos – Preoccupations, the controversial Canadians formally known as Viet Cong.

Opening up the night were Aussie psych rockers, Methyl Ethel. They had a very vintage vibe in both the way the sounded and the way they dressed. They played songs off their album Oh Inhuman Spectacle, my favorite being the almost beachy but a little eerie “Shadowboxing.” Their stage presence was pretty chill though it did consist of a lot of hair whipping, but it definitely didn’t prepare me for what came next.

Methyl Ethel

Preoccupations came out to the sounds of screeching, yet melodic guitars. They’re good at keeping up the chill façade until the thrashing and wailing starts to happen. The lead singer and bassist, Matt Flegel’s voice has machinelike precision and great power. He let every emotion out each time he screamed a lyric – though it wasn’t quite a scream, it was more like he was sucking out part of my soul – somehow, in a good way.

Preoccupations

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Preoccupations

Pre

Half of their set consisted of songs off their current album Preoccupations including the robotic and terrifying-ly beautiful “Anxiety” (their opening song) and the angry but dream-like “Memory.” They also threw in some older songs including “Silhouettes” and “Death” – a song that is dramatically long – with which they ended their set, playing out the song’s repetitiveness and teasing an encore that didn’t happen.

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Preoccupations

Pre

Pre

Pre

Pre

Preoccupations is a band that doesn’t care what people think, they whirl about the stage in a manic like nature just causing the audience to mimic their movements. Though I guess you can beg to differ because they did change their name after all.