U-Melt at Brooklyn Bowl 9/21/13
In a sense, though, it was considerably more than that. In
spite of the fact that it was advertised as a one-off gig, there was a feeling
that the band was experiencing its own revitalization and reinvention. This was
due in no small part to the fact that the show marked the first time that the
band performed with five full members, with founders Zac Lasher, Rob Salzer,
Adam Bendy and George Miller being joined by new member Kevin Griffin, a
long-time friend of the band. Griffin had filled the role of U-Melt guitarist for
a period in 2010 when Salzer bowed out just after completing the band’s final
album, Perfect World. At those shows, Griffin’s technical abilities made him
more than able to recreate Salzer’s intricately dazzling guitar parts, while at
the same time demonstrating his own energetic and somewhat looser style of playing. Now, with
Salzer and Griffin playing together onstage for the first time as bandmates
(Griffin had often sat in with the band in earlier years), they found a
powerful new sound combining Salzer’s fluid, wizardly lines with Griffin’s
exuberant style, often featuring breathtaking harmonic lines, often played at
breakneck speed, displayed on the show’s opener, “Elysian
Fields.”
With an additional member to tackle some of the harmonic
parts, keyboardist Zac Lasher now had greater freedom to create the ethereal sonic
dreamscapes that have come to be a cornerstone of the band’s sound. Indeed, he
had his work cut out for him (or rather, he had cut it out for himself) as the
band’s last recordings featured some of Lasher’s most dense and layered parts. Lasher
and the band had clearly come a long way from the sparse sounds of their earlier
live-tronica influenced jams when the band was in its infancy. This is not to
say that from the outset, the band did not always seek to combine danceable
grooves with elegant and intricate composition, they simply got better at it.
Drummer George Miller
and bassist Adam Bendy showed once again that they had the unique ability to
hold down a danceable groove when playing music replete with complex meter and
key changes, ensuring that the music would be as satisfying for the body as for
the head. As George’s deft, thunderous playing weaved between propulsive and
jazzy, Bendy displayed his combination of straight in-the-pocket playing with acute
harmonic intelligence
To be sure, it was not a standard U-Melt setlist. One thing
conspicuously absent was the occasional throw-in of a classic prog or 80s cover
song to contribute to the party atmosphere. But this was not just a normal U-Melt gig. There was clearly a sense of
occasion, and they had no time for anyone else’s music. While the setlist included a few favorites from the early years,
including the band’s early rave-up “Schizophrenia,” it largely favored the most
recent material composed and recorded just prior to their breakup in 2010,
including live favorites such as “The Fantastical Flight of Captain Delicious”
and “Clear Light.” Songs wove together with others, and in places where the
band might, in days past, have thrown in a tease of a song by The Police or
Steely Dan, they would reference a song of their own which they did not have
enough time to play in its entirety. These guys had a lot of lost time to make
up for, and a lot of material to cram in.
The evening had high expectations and the band delivered. The
band was coy about future plans (Lasher: “Maybe we’ll do this again some
time”). However, to listen to the tightness of the band, one would never think that they had
been apart for three years. To see the anticipation and reaction of the crowd,
one would think that they had been apart for much, much longer. One thing is
for sure, they don’t want to have to wait that long again.
Photos by Jeremy Gordon (as if you couldn't tell from the watermark)
