Kansas City Music Blog

It's hard to comprehend Modest Mouse's mass appeal. With a few notable exceptions, Seattle group's songs are epically quirky, full of jerky guitar meanderings, odd time signatures, jolting and percussive rather than hooky or catchy. Singer, guitar player (one of several) and front man Isaac Brock's voice is distinctively twangy, and rather than sing, he uses it to hector, bark and chant, like an especially gifted feral child asked by playground bullies, of whom he is not afraid, to justify his existence one pivotal day on the playground.

Curious though the group may be, most of the capacity crowd at the Uptown last night had unquestioning loyalty for the group, and the Mouse roared back with two drummers powering a crashing two-hour set and enough lighting action to guide a space shuttle home, though Brock's performance all by himself was powerful enough to bring the Uptown's gilded columns crashing down.

Did you just say, 'play some old shit'? -- Isaac Brock

First of all, what's new with the group? Good question. A rumor sprang up recently of a possible new EP. Other than that, the group's latest release, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, is approaching it's second birthday. For that album and subsequent touring, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr rather inexplicably joined the band, adding his stately, echoing guitar parts to the Mouse's Rube Goldberg indie rock. To my mind, at the time, it was like Andy Summers joining Cake. To most folks, the group is still best known for its 2004 commercial hit, "Float On," from Good News for People Who Love Bad News, which also contains the group's possibly second-best-known single "Ocean Breathes Salty." So, release-wise, the group's not up to a lot. For this tour, Marr has been replaced by former Grandaddy guitarist Jim Fairchild, who had to learn a fuckload of new and old songs.

That it can sell out 2,300-seaters like the Uptown across the country right now is a testimony to the house that Mouse has built since its inception in 1996. And last night, that house was full of cigarette smoke and high school kids. A few minutes before Modest Mouse came on, a roadie or someone got on the mic and reminded everyone it was a non-smoking show. He was answered by boos and rebellious plumes of smoke. Later in the set, just before bouncing into "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" (appropriately) Brock and bassist Eric Judy light themselves a smoke. Hey, it was that kind of show -- the adults were gone, and the kids were gonna have fun. Fortunately, the band was in the mood to have fun, too, despite this being podunk lil' Kansas City.

After the fourth song, a brooding space-jam from the old days called "Dramamine," someone shouted a request to Isaac Brock -- which, by all accounts, is something you should never do -- for "some old shit." "Did you just say 'play some old shit'? That was some old shit, you douchebag," Brock retorted, to the crowd's delight. Rather than getting all dramatic, though Brock went on a brief, Patton Oswaltian rant. "I'm a grumpy dude, and you just pushed my grump button," he growled. And then the burn: "I'm pretty sure that shit we just played was older than you are." And with the keyboardist switching to bowed upright bass, the band went into the acoustic ditty "Wild Packs of Family Dogs."

I am familiar with only a few Modest Mouse songs, so I have no idea whether last night's show favored newer or older material. Furthermore, Brock's clipped, quasi-redneck voice crushes lyrics by the time they got back to the venue, so I'm relying on the good folks at fan site Interstate 8 for the accuracy of this set list.

Bury Me With It
Never Ending Math Equation
The View
Dramamine
Wild Packs Of Family Dogs
Breakthrough
Guilty Cocker Spaniel
Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes
Interstate 8
All Night Diner
Parting Of The Sensory
The Good Times Are Killing Me
Fire It Up
Ohio
Bukowski
Invisible

encore
3rd Planet
Satellite Skin
Dashboard
Baby Blue Sedan
Alone Down There

There were two openers that I saw. The first, the Japanese Motors, represent, I fear, the first wave of young bands who came of age worshipping the Strokes. The second opener, Mimicking Birds, was completely different altogether. Considering the group's name and the fact that it's signed to Brock's own label, I expected Mimicking Birds to be mimicking Mouse, but the trio's music was more aligned with the ethereal folk of Fleet Foxes. Singer Nate Lacey even had a hollowed-out tenor to match that of a Robin Pecknold or a Jim James. Though not fit for the rowdy room, the Birds' post-Radiohead psych-folk is more my bag, listening-wise, than crazy ol' Modest Mouse ever could be, but I have no complaints about this show. It was jubilant, musically tight, dynamically compelling, satisfactorily long -- in short, the kind of performance any fan would hope for.