Gang Gang Dance, opening night performance at the Works
By Jens Larson
With more than seventy-five fans dancing on stage during the encore, the band is lucky they only lost the drumsticks. Some of the burlier fans could have lumbered off with the amps and drum kits. Some may have even tried to carry off Lizzie Bougatsos (lead singer and drummer), but in the end the fans left her on stage and settled for hugs and handshakes.
And that’s how the entire performance went: controlled and beautiful chaos. In the pit, where the line between “hipster” and “redneck” blurred, there was some masculine rowdiness and a bit of bodysurfing–some of it successful–but for the most part it was just happy people jumping up and down.
In the balcony (alcohol free and flush with teenagers suffering through some Harry Potter-esque angst) there was room to dance, and dance they did, but in that comfortable teenage way that makes you remember how difficult it was to move your arms more than eighteen inches from your body.
Through it all was the band, playing a set twice as long as advertised, playing to a completely packed hall, playing a strange blend of tribal, folk and electronica. If it were anatomically possible to arrange a three-way between the best pop hits of Bjork, a drum and a sampler, you have GGD’s cutting-edge blend of tribal-futurism. And it would sound good. So good you might want to arrange your own ménage à trois.
GGD was at its best with a quick tempo and strong bass and drum lines, but even at slower speeds the sound was rich and complex and free of cliches. Completely accessible (and wonderful) moments were linked with challenging but freshly improvised passages, and at one point a nearby concert goer said, “the only thing that might make this better is LSD.” And he was right: the show was really that trippy. If you weren’t there, you missed one of Portland’s better moments.
Brian DeGraw (keyboardist) mastered his samples, and Bougatsos’s voice–with lilts that almost seemed Irish and sometimes seemed Arabic–was almost more instrumental than vocal. The band’s experimental sound was altogether danceable, and despite its complexity, it always managed to cohere.
PICA and the TBA scored a hit with GGD, and for those who missed Thursday night’s show, you can always head up to the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle this weekend for GGD’s final west coast show of this tour.
