Concert Review: Shellac Are Not Your Friend

Pantera’s got nuthin’ on Shellac. Sure, it was the late, not-so-great (well, way overrated, at least) metal band that came up with a song called “Fucking Hostile.” But on Saturday at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, the authors of the phrase may as well have been Steve Albini, Bob Weston and Todd Trainer.

Dispatching F-bombs onto the crowd with the unmitigated excess of a U.S. military strike on a suspected terrorist haven, Shellac were the antithesis of a crowd-pleaser.

Now that’s not to say the show wasn’t a raging (in the truest sense of the word) success - those who knew what they were in for got what they came for, including three new songs. But pity the curious, unprepared souls who wandered into the early-evening gig only to be pummeled by Albini’s shouts of, “Fuck this place and all these people,” and, “Hey man, I wanna have a fight with you.”

Granted, those lines were spewed within the context of the dozen or so songs the revered, often-dormant Chicago veterans belted out over the course of the show. But even when the band took a more jocular approach - like when bassist Weston wryly answered questions from the audience as Albini tuned his guitars - the message was clear: Shellac do not want to be your friend.

The show didn’t start out so uncompromisingly tense. Opening act Arcwelder - another Chicago post-rock staple - kept the mood light as they worked their way through almost a dozen songs unearthed from their ’90s catalog. Stunningly, while the band formed almost 20 years ago, the Saturday show was their first-ever gig in Los Angeles - a reminder of how L.A.-phobic Shellac had also been until a few years ago.

As if they were consciously trying to counteract what would follow, Arcwelder merrily bounded through their set, with bassist/vocalist/guitarist Rob Graber wearing a perma-grin. His uncontainable exuberance - and weird habit of slapping his right elbow with his left hand - helped overshadow the band’s rustiness (and drummer/vocalist Scott McDonald’s off-key singing).

Given the audience’s ambivalence, it’s fair to say that Shellac - who said how honored they felt to be sharing a stage with the band - were not trying to draw any new fans with Arcwelder. But nor were Albini and company trying to at any point during their own set.

Wearing a T-shirt that said “Ante-Christ” - available on FashionablyGeek.com, a Web site that sells “clothing and accessories for the well-dressed geek,” FYI - Albini could not have looked more disaffected. That was, until the band broke into an explosive instrumental, when Albini began spazzing out, malfunctioning like a Scanner whose head was about to burst.

Across the stage from Albini was Weston, who surveilled the crowd like a bouncer ready to pounce on any disruptive crowdmember. Meanwhile, percussionist Trainer writhed his way through the set like a marathon runner (mouth agape, hollowed cheeks, sweat leaking off his drumstick-thin frame).

But Albini drew the most eyeballs, as he used his pedestal to rail against institutions (government, corporations, religion) and individuals (a guy who sits on his couch in sweatpants, a club owner) alike. True to the band’s renowned live performances, though, he didn’t confine his banter to Shellac’s lyrics, often joining Weston on the improv tip (aptly, Albini declared at the end of the show that he was heading to the UCB, a nearby comedy club with a strong improv bent).

A fitting end to a set by a band that could not have cared less how the audience reacted - Weston even declared at one point, jokingly or not, that the band had only come to L.A. to play shows “for the money” - Shellac stopped playing their closing “Watch Song” twice. The first time was at Weston’s insistence, saying Albini was out of tune. But the second, an audience member bore the brunt of the abuse.

Albini tore into a guy who was apparently sitting on the stage, shirtless and with his back turned to the band. The guy deserved to be berated, maybe, but at the expense of the audience hearing the band play a song interrupted?

Just chalk up that incident, like the rest of the night, to Shellac being Shellac.

Partial set list:

Instrumental

“Copper”

“My Black Ass”

“Steady as She Goes”

“Canada”

“Be Prepared”

new song

“Squirrel Song”

“Prayer to God”

new song