She Wants Revenge, Be Your Own Pet, the Virgins, Switches at the Beaumont Club
She Wants Revenge et al
Tuesday, May 12
The Beaumont
Better than: Paying $400 to see the Police.
By CRYSTAL K. WIEBE
Photos by SARAH OKUN
As rock tours go, Nylon Magazine's Summer Music Tour has some pretty rad elements: up-and-coming bands, free posters, a digital photobooth. In fact, it’s too bad more folks didn't show up at the Beaumont Club last night for the festivities, which included sets by She Wants Revenge, Be Your Own Pet, the Virgins and Switches.
Just before the first band came on, my buddy Jake pointed to the 20 or so teenagers right in front of the stage. “That’s how many people came the last time Be Your Own Pet played,” he said, referring to a show at the Grand Emporium. Granted, folks were seated at most of the high tops in the house, too, but save for that small clutch at the front, the floor of the Beaumont was desolate.
That made me really pity Switches. But it's always some band's job to open the show, and the UK band mustered some enthusiasm and did what it had to. Unfortunately, Switches did not perform the rendition of Beck's "Sexx Laws," which appears on MySpace. Rather, the band played pretty much everything off its debut album, Lay Down the Law, saving the title track and single "Drama Queen" for the end, both of which really showcase the band's knack for the catchy, power pop chorus.
The Virgins came on next. They are from New York City but look like they’re from the UK. The singer has those stereotypical bad British teeth. Pardon me for being shallow, but actually nothing about the band looked good – their shirts and shoes were baggy; their hairstyles looked slept on but not in a cool way. I couldn’t help but notice, considering the tour is sponsored by a fashion magazine.
But no matter, the frumpy Virgins got my booty shaking, anyway, with surprisingly funky songs like "Rich Girls" and "Private Affair." The Virgins' sound reminded me of the band Pulp and the movie Boogie Nights. "Someone needs to be rollerskating backwards!" Jake shouted at one point. The groovy soundtrack seemed all the more relevant given the amount of PDA I'd witnessed over the course of the evening -- between (separately) a middle-aged straight couple, teenage lesbians and a 20-something couple in the front row that looked like two lesbians but which were really a chick and a long-haired dude.
The teenage lesbians got really excited when the next band came on -- the much-anticipated Nashville act Be Your Own Pet. It's easy to see why -- Jemina Pearl, the band's super young firecracker of a frontwoman is like Karen O meets old school Gwen Stefani. Wearing shiny, spandex tights and an oversize Billy Idol t-shirt, she spat all over the floor and gyrated so much that she looked close to passing out.
With their fast punk songs about food fights and girl fights, 20-year-old Pearl and her band dished out the rawest, realest bit of rock and roll I've experienced in quite a while.
Topping BYOP's riotous set would be hard for any band, and I seriously doubted that She Wants Revenge was up to it. By the time the sexed up neo wave duo (quartet for the tour) took the stage at 10:30, the crowd hadn't grown that much. Mustachioed singer Justin Warfield
noted that. "There are not many of you, but you are mighty in your numbers," he said, acknowledging the SWR superfans in the crowd. (They wore fedoras, short shorts and, on some of them, corsets.)
I used to be a big fan of SWR. In 2005, the band's first record freaked me out and got me hot at the same time. In a creepy monotone, Warfield expresses things about relationships that most of us don't like to admit (You can occupy my every sigh/You can rent a space inside my mind/At least until the price becomes too high), tossing in a few S&M references along the way. But too much of the same shit is boring. The band's recent stuff doesn't have the same effect. And with Warfield laughing with the crowd mid-song last night, there was no way for the songs to be scary. He knew it, too: "Let's not make this too interactive or you'll throw me off," he joked. The superfans liked that. And I wouldn't say Warfield was ever off. But I do wish Jemina Pearl's vocals had been turned up as high as his were.
Personal Bias: If I were in high school right now, I would totally plaster my locker with pictures of Jemina Pearl.
Random Detail: The Virgins were hawking shirts emblazoned with real photos of male genitalia.
By the Way: Don't try to sit on the fence that surrounds the mechanical bull in the Beaumont. That's against the rules.
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