Pinback
Saturday, March 16 at The Canal Club
Pinback played to a delighted crowd at the Canal Club. With the Pinback show taking place the same night as Louis C.K.’s appearance at Carpenter Theatre, the conflict certainly tore crowds. I heard Louis C.K. was hilarious, but those who opted for the music were in for their own intimate Pinback treat. The place wasn’t packed, but those in attendance flocked to the front of the stage, making it impossible for me to find any of my friends in the crowd. I walked in right as Pinback was taking the stage.
They immediately sounded like a louder, better version of their recordings, as they broke into hits like Offcell’s “Victorious D” and Summer in Abbadon’s “Non-Photo Blue” and “Sender”, but right away I noticed something fishy: all of their “classics”, or songs of albums from years past, seemed to be played a whopping ten to fifteen beats-per-minute faster than the recordings of those songs that have become ingrained in my mind. At first I wondered if maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, but my girlfriend quickly agreed with me, and we tried to come up with several reasons why the hell they would do this. My immediate first guess was that they were simply caught up in the moment, and that they were just playing the songs nautrally fast.
However, I soon realized that this wasn't possible, as they were playing along with pre-programmed beats. The increased bpm had to be intentional. But why? My girlfriend mentioned that maybe they were going for a more danceable vibe, and thought the fast paced music would get people moving. We kept that in our minds as one possibility. Then I wondered if maybe Pinback was so sick of playing their “hit” songs, that they decided they would just rush through them super fast, not caring what the crowd thinks. This thought gave me a much darker impression of the band than my original thought that maybe they were just trying to hype up the crowd. My mind could not escape this thought process for most of the show. But as the drinks sank in, I was decidedly less disappointed/confused by the tempo change. At the end I was even heavily bobbing my head to a fast-as-shit version of "AFK," quite possibly my favorite Pinback song.
Now I realized I've spent a lot of time ragging on this tempo change dilemma, but don't misunderstand, I did enjoy the show. As a matter of fact, I loved the show. Seeing one of my favorite bands live is always a treat, no matter how fast or slow they play. There’s always that special moment where you peak on nostalgia and you’re about to shed a tear, and to me, that moment is worth the whole show.