[Detroit] I’d dragged myself out to
#2 venue on my alphabetic quest to conquer all Portland music venues and it
wasn’t a resounding success. So I was reading one of Portland’s alt-weeklies to
pass the time while white boys rapped and saw Adult. was coming to Portland!
Tonight!... It’d been a pretty below average day and I was tired but Adult. is
a band that always makes me say “Yes.” when they come up on my ipod. I don’t
know much about them – except I classify them as synth punk – the sort of synth
punk I tend toward: palatable and dance-able. And so suddenly I found myself
dragging my tired ass across town to wait an hour for the show to start, and
then two hours through other bands for Adult. The only thing I saw glancing
over the description of the show was that they played in Germany once… The man
managing the dials with his pompadour with a blonde stripe and his blue scarf
wound around his neck never spoke although I do believe he scratched with dials
at one point. The woman came on after a few minutes build up and was striking
in a way that I found seriously weird and offputting, which is weird for me. She
had severely short bangs, bangs that traveled halfway around her head. She had
a tight pinched face. The thing is, though, she was warm and friendly and
natural – calling out to the crowd in a way that didn’t coincide with the cold
distance of the music. Then I figured it out! She didn’t have eyebrows –
fastest way to make yourself a true freak. So it turns out they’re not exactly
palatable. They started off much more in the vein of Kraftwerk, whom I really
don’t enjoy, and Nitzer Ebb, whom I do enjoy but never like delved into deeply
(outside of “Violent Playground” and the rest of that album). Very German
industrial actually. Despite my concern, she was mesmerizing – she was in this sexy
black gauzey shirt, tight black pants (like the whole crowd), and a punky steelbezzled
belt. She punctuated the beeps of the music with little flits of her hand. She
danced robotically, sang mechanically, and then she got all magic on us. She
started flitting so quickly, she created the effect of strobe lights – it was
remarkable. She used two microphones simultaneously through the second half of
the set. And, like I said, in breaks from her industrial magic, she’d make
little joke-y comments with the crowd. In love. I was. They definitely dance-d
it up as the set went on – I even heard some Ministry – then I started
wondering if there’s even a difference between synth punk & industrial
dance. Nonetheless, they’re still more purist than I realized – as dance-y as
they get, they maintain that tight classic industrial restraint. The lyrics
referenced the plight of humanity. The guy made beautiful sounds, almost like
scratching at points although he wasn’t with his hands. I loved them. The crowd
loved them. They started crowd-surfing … but in poor form – one slub went to
leap off the stage and hesitated and just kind of slumped over into the crowd –
then a female leaned off the stage with the assistance of what looked to be a security
guy – finally, magic woman pointed out the crowd-surfing, kind of implying it
was atypical for a show like this and they stopped. It was a good crowd. I just
allowed myself to look them up – they’re from Detroit, which makes me love them
more, and they’ve been a band since 1998. Deeply rooted in industrial I was charmed throughout. For
some reason, the smell of Bounce was in the air – my favorite fabric softener
& industrial music?? Dara comfort heaven
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