You Should've Been There: Handsome Furs [WOW Hall, 4/17/2008]

I walked into the WOW Hall 15 minutes past 9 pm and it was a strange scene. Usually I'd see the opening act already onstage (or I completely miss it) and people milling about. But the WOW was surprisingly bereft of concertgoers. Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs) were behind the merch booth chatting with a few fans. I caught the words "we've been ill that last couple days..." from Boeckner's mouth and was a little bit afraid Arthur & Yu were not going to be playing. But such was not the case. After 20 minutes, Arthur & Yu took the stage and more people showed up, much to the band's relief. Arthur & Yu were decent, had a few good songs that popped out more than the others, but honestly did they need 6 musicians onstage? The second keyboard was a bit excessive (though in reality it rarely got played).

By the time the Handsome Furs took the stage (Boeckner and Perry could be seen cruising through the WOW all night ... who could miss those skinny-skinny black jeans on Boeckner and Perry's theatrical eyeliner?) it felt less like a WOW Hall show and more like one of the house concerts I've recently attended. The by-now sizable crowd swarmed to the front of the stage and had no problem hopping around as the Furs launched into tunes off of Plague Park. The thing with the Furs is its all minimal, but meant to sound like more than it is. Boeckner has his electric guitar and Perry operates the sampler & drum machine: That's it. But if I closed my eyes the simplicity of the music didn't matter, it was the result. And the result was equal parts guitar shredding out-and-out rock and drum-and-loop dance beats. Super sweet, if you ask me.

Boeckner called the crowd "one of the best" and even gave a shout out to the "Eugene mosh pit," asking if they'd unionized yet, and if so, were they working overtime? I had no idea Eugene was notorious for its mosh pits, but it makes total sense. Just go to a concert 2 hours north in the City That Doesn't Dance and you'll notice an utter lack of moshing (well, unless you go to a show at Portland Meadows or one of Portland's seedier dives).

Anyway, good times. Thank you, Handsome Furs, for believing in the power of Eugene to turn out an enthusiastic crowd.

Listen to the Handsome Furs' song, "Cannot Get, Started," on Episode 4 of Signal:Noise here.