The Underground Is Overcrowded

Archers of Loaf @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 7/10/2015
Step Into the Light / Let the Loser Melt / 1985 – Fabricoh / Harnessed in Slums / Dead Red Eyes / Lowest Part is Free! / Freezing Point / Mark Price, P.I. / South Carolina / Wrong / Web in Front / Revenge / Nostalgia / Smokin’ Pot in the Hot City / You & Me / Might / Plumb Line / All Hail the Black Market // Audiowhore / Greatest of All Time / White Trash Heroes

I’d seen Archers of Loaf once before, back when they first reunited for a tour a few years ago. I remember that being a good show, but this one was much better – the band were really on, and the audience was very enthusiastic. It seemed like almost everyone in the venue was passionate about this band, and was having some sort of catharsis when they played the big ones – “Harnessed in Slums,” “Wrong,” “Web in Front,” “Lowest Part is Free!,” “Nostalgia,” etc. It was exactly what I would’ve wanted an Archers of Loaf show to be like when I was a teenager, except they would’ve played “Nevermind the Enemy.” I don’t get not playing that song – if I was in a band and had a song like that, I’d play it three times in a row every night.

Archers of Loaf “Greatest of All Time (Live)”

“Greatest of All Time” has always been one of my favorite Archers songs, but I wasn’t expecting it to move me as much as it did in this show. It’s an odd song – fragile but dramatic, bitter yet sentimental, ironic but also wistful. It’s essentially a song about how easily music fans can turn on their heroes, and maybe also a bit about the absurdity of making these people into “heroes” in the first place. We elevate people to mean something, but the moment they lose their semiotic usefulness, they’re either turned into a joke or relegated to being “legends,” frozen in time and discouraged from being anything else. Maybe the song is more poignant now that Archers themselves are in that legend role, and seem to be this band frozen in amber. I’m sure none of this is lost on Eric Bachmann as he sings it, and that he probably knows that “the underground is overcrowded” has a very different resonance today than it did 20 years ago.

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