Xiu Xiu and a bunch of bands that made my head hurt, Pike Room, Pontiac, September 2

I wasn’t really surprised to find that the Xiu Xiu show on Tuesday night was moved from the large Crofoot Ballroom to the much smaller Pike Room.

First, it was a Tuesday—worst day for a concert or for anything fun ever. Second, Xiu Xiu is one of the most unlikely bands to bring people out of their comfortable houses. Their intense, abstract, and aching art noise rock isn’t the kind of music that draws large crowds on a weekday. So it ended up being me and 30 other people, many of them surprisingly young. (I wasn’t the winner of the oldest person at the show award, but I definitely placed)

I don’t know anything about the bands that opened for Xiu Xiu. Sorry–didn’t do my homework. But if I had, I probably would’ve tried to show up just as Xiu Xiu was starting instead of arriving way early. We don’t like to be negative here at Post-Rockist central, but I’ll say two things about my pre-Xiu Xiu experience:

1. I don’t totally get art bands, but I’m open-minded enough to listen and can find some really good ideas in a lot of really arty rock. However, I’m always suspicious of music that is so artsy and noisy that you can’t really tell if the musicians mess up or not. If there’s not enough structure to help an audience to figure out if the musicians made a mistake, then it’s not really listenable for me.

2. I’m not sure who the guy was who went on right before Xiu Xiu, but I can’t believe that the Pike Room would have a “no re-entry” policy knowing that this guy was on the bill. Egregious!

These guys made Xiu Xiu seem as pleasant as The Beatles.

But what a perfect Xiu Xiu show it was. They did everything I expected and love from this band. Lots of weird little percussion instruments? Check. Lots of clanky, clinky thingies that kind of look like cymbals? Check. Uncomfortable silences, and the inability of the performers to look the audience in the eyes and vice versa? Check, check check (one for each member of the band). Caralee McElroy blowing a whistle as hard as she can into a sensitive microphone, shattering everyone’s eardrums? Oh yeah. Jamie Stewart coming back to town every year with more songs to make us all feel extremely uncomfortable with our lives and existence in general? Def.

Xiu Xiu is the only band who can do all this and I’ll still love them.

My favorite Jamie Stewartism of the night was the line “cremate me!” How deliciously psychopathic!

The thing about Xiu Xiu is that they’re so serious and so artsy (but with songs that are actually listenable) (well, kind of) that they almost become caricatures of a serious and artsy rock band. I kind of felt like I was in a future Christopher Guest movie. There is such excessive instrumentation, so much stuff on the stage! So many different sounds, unexpected breakdowns, weird noises, clanging banging beating drums. Capos on 13th frets. The largest crash symbol you’ve ever seen! And the crowd sometimes didn’t know when a song was done, and didn’t know when to clap half of the time (and I include myself in that number). A friend of mine noted that it was more like a recital than a concert and that the stage looked like a music store.

It was the art rock version of turning it up to 11.

It was gloriously uncomfortable and cerebral, and I can’t believe I didn’t have the guts to be the guy to shout out “Play ‘Under Pressure!’”

Xiu Xiu – Under Pressure from Women as Lovers