I realize that it's a silly thing to think, but I was under the impressed that a three piece band couldn't rock as hard or be as exciting live as a bigger band could. The Muggabears proved me wrong. They played at the Mercury Lounge in NYC on June 18, 2007 and rocked me quite hard.
If you remember, I wrote a blog post about this band a couple of weeks back where I basically tried to get you to listen to their Myspace. Well now I'm going to have to ask you to not only listen to their entire discography (2 EPs and a fully length), but go see them in concert as well.
In accordance with their oh-so-huggable name, the band's dynamic on stage might be described as "cute" - their banter is unrehearsed and short. They nervously stare out into the audience or to the floor in between songs. Never once however do they come off as cold, however. No, they're happy to be there and play for you.
And they did play. The shyness fades away as soon as notes were heard from the guitar and it becomes all danger. Sure, they're cute bears. But remember that they're The Muggabears - as in, these bears will fucking mug you.
The set opened with my personal favorite (good move, guys) "The Goth Tarts." The drums pound out that tom/shaker rhythm and the bass and guitars chug along in a long intro that when played live really sets up the menacing chords that follow the main sections of the song. When the singer, Travis Muggabear declared "I went looking for you" in the song's opening lines, it felt like he was warning each and every one of us in that audience.
The guitar and bass literally roared like rolls of thunder in the worst rainstorm you can imagine when they played "We Were Priests" - the closest they come to straight up punk. I stood amazed at how loud and how strong this music was.
Not all was perfect, however. About halfway through the set, lead singer and guitarist Travis Muggabear's equipment started to cut out on him and a faulty pedal or cable plagued him for the rest of the set. You can't really blame anyone in a band for things like this, because as the singer said, "It happens." But I think this is a really telling moment for bands because it becomes an issue of what you do with the technical difficulty - you have to make it work in the overall performance.
In this case, the band let these set backs fuel the emotion they put into the music. The song "Dead Kid Kicks" closed the set and even though I already loved the recorded version of the song, I felt like I was hearing something completely new. They absolutely tore it up, with the lead singer beating the hell out of his guitar. It was as if he was scolding the thing for acting up earlier. This time it behaved.
If you like giant, oddly tuned chords of noise slapping you in the face (and who doesn't?), then I highly recommend going to check out The Muggabears. They've got another show at Mercury coming up in a few weeks so maybe I'll see you there.
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