15 June 2007 -- The Horrors @ Triple Rock Social Club (Minneapolis)

(all photos by yours truly, KD)

After punch-ups in NYC and sizable fame in the UK, the Horrors scrapped their May plans of opening for a BRMC tour and are finally doing a proper headlining tour of the U.S. The tail end, luckily, included a stop in humble Minneapolis, at the Triple Rock Club.

School Yard Heroes (above and right), the touring opener, began the night off right and pleasantly surprised all those in the audience who had never heard of them (and equally satisfied a surprising number of their own fans who had come just to see them). After talking to the guy at the merch booth and hearing a little about them (they're from Seattle, have been together about 5 years, have a really unique sound and live show), I was pumped to check them out. And they definitely did not disappoint! Reminded me a lot of Dandi Wind with the kick-ass front woman and electro-ish sound, but were far more rock-oriented than the Canadian trio. The bassist and guitarist both had HUGE hair which was sweet, and the singer was energetic, intense, pretty, and rather dark-sounding. She had the cutest dress on as well as high top converse!

And of course -- the Horrors!! What can I say, these guys are a vision. Arriving at the club, I walked in right as Faris (lead vox) was walking in carrying something that looked kinda like a toolbox / caboodle, so I held the door for him, said hi, and then he tries to just walk in past the bouncer. But the bouncer stops him -- only after pointing to the top of the guestlist (where "THE HORRORS" was written in permanent marker) was he admitted to the club.

Before the band took the stage, the first thing I noticed were the two rather gorgeous Fender Jaguars which were situated right in front of me. I'm not sure I even saw the band come out, but all of a sudden, there they were ... Faris Badwan, Tomethy Furse, Joshua Third, Coffin Joe, and Spider Webb combined to form a well-groomed mess of vests, belts, dress shirts and shoes, skinny jeans, eyeliner, and - oh - the hair! All items of course being in black with a white accent here and there for drama: Faris' shirt, Joshua's blonde shock, a belt, shoes, etc. The band chose to open with a cover of Joy Division's "No Love Lost." I'm not sure why you would open with a song other than your own, but hey, they call the shots. And that's fine with me because after that, they launched into one of their strongest songs, "Count in Fives." What's funny is that the only two band members with a significant stage presence were Faris and Spider Webb (keyboard and vocals). I had expected lead guitarist, Joshua (above right), to command an bit more attention that he did, what with that hair and all. But mostly, he looked at his feet the entire show. Can you blame him? If I were wearing these shoes, I would probably be admiring them the whole time as well.

The show got more and more intense as the set continued, Faris pacing in circles like a dog on the stage, yowling into the mic, hair perpetually in his face, invading the crowd, perching on a speaker and yelling right into people's faced, then coming down only to sing half the song while stalking about the audience, pushing and shoving amongst the fans, the fans shoving back just as hard. With the vocalist wandering off many times, Spider Webb managed the stage in his absence, providing haunting backing vocals, and eerie organ-sounding musical accompaniment, and dramatic effect via eyeliner! Overall, it was a beyond-entertaining gig with very excellent music; and the set actually seemed longer than would be required by a mere 10 songs! (However, I'm convinced they played an unreleased song in between "Sheena Is a Parasite" and "Gloves.") Here is what the setlist looked like:

















Closing with "Gloves" was absolute genius because not only is it my favourite song of theirs, but also provides a good climax to the set and allows the band to leave the stage with a powerful finish. During this song, Faris spent the whole time singing from different places in the audience before disappearing to grab a clock off a wall (from somewhere in the bar) and fitting it down the front of his shirt which allowed him to strike himself in the chest with the mic. Finally, at the end of the song, he is at the back of the bar (and yes, his mic still has a cord swinging from it) and approaches the glowing, brightly-colored pinball machine and, instead of singing the words to the song, yells for someone to get him a quarter! Anybody get me a quarter for the pinball game! He then gets up on one of the counters at which patrons are sitting, stomps about for a while before leaping onto the top of one of the other games in the bar (I am directly under the mic cord at this time and its swinging rather invades my head-space!). The band finish the song with Faris singing the lines, "I've gotta go / I've gotta get out of here /I've gotta go." And then, all of a sudden, the band are gone as quickly and mysteriously as they had arrived.