WHY?

LIVE AT THE MIDDLE EAST

OCTOBER 14, 2012

by JOEY DALLA-BETTA

Three of my friends and I got on the T towards . . . crap. Are we going to Central guys? Okay, yeah, Central. The band that we were seeing, Why?, were playing at the Middle East Downstairs, and we were excited as hell. Jack and Cam didn’t really know them, but Noah and I had been looking forward to the night for a couple of weeks. We got off of the T, plugged the venue’s address into our phones, and found it without a problem. The night was going smoothly—that is, until we tried to get in. The fake ID my friend tried to use didn’t faze the woman working the door; it promptly got taken away, and he was back on the T in no more than twenty minutes after getting off of it. And then we were three. We walked down a flight of stairs and were immediately transported into a different world. Music venues are interesting in that each has its own unique charm, and The Middle East Downstairs is no different. The lights were dim, neon blue and green illuminated the eager faces of the people around us, and it was packed with the most eclectic group of people I’d ever seen. A relatively even mix of many subcultures was represented, from hipsters to bros to out-of-place moms.

And it was hot. It was music venue hot, and the walls were beginning to sweat when we were introduced to some of the weirdest music any of us could have ever imagined. Doseone came out in a very unimpressive fashion, telling jokes like he was preparing to introduce an opening act. To the surprise and general disdain of the audience, his jokes metamorphosed into short lyrics, which eventually became one or two word yelps at misplaced breaks in his bad electronic beats. We were looking around to gauge the reactions of the people around us, but their faces were equally as confused as ours must have been. Out of respect, we kept our distaste to ourselves, until it was literally unbearable. At that point, people from every corner of the room began yelling at him to get off of the stage, but he was way too drunk to notice, and he continued on. After about 45 minutes, we were relinquished of the terrible burden on our ears and the anticipation for Why? resumed.

The lights dimmed. It’s black now. Suspense is rising rising rising. Six silhouettes walked out of the door and took their places on stage, beginning the set with an instrumental introduction before the lights came back on to reveal Why? Two female vocalists began to sing, but Yoni Wolf, Why?’s frontman, was nowhere to be seen. Was this an unlisted opening act? Just as our confusion was piquing, the door opened again, and the crowd went wild. He slowly walked to the front of the stage, wearing a creepily straight face, and then he belted the first few lyrics of one of their more popular songs, “Good Friday.” The crowd rushed forward, melting the cliques into one large, homogenous group. We forgot about who we came with, where our friends were; Yoni Wolf was the only person any of us could think about in that moment. The drummer, the percussionist, the keyboardist, the two backup vocalists, the bassist and the guitarist were all in perfect synchronicity, riding each other’s musical waves to the peaks of Wolf’s high-pitched, haunting vocals. I was being crushed between two rows of sweating fans, but the heat had become a non-factor; we were all too lost in the music. The crowd got closer and closer to the stage as the performance carried on, only easing the push forward in between songs. An instrumental breakdown left Wolf with a thirty-second chunk of free time, during which he decided to bring his weirdness to a maximum: he tilted his head forward so that his nose was almost perpendicular to the ground (while still managing to keep his eyes open wide and on the crowd) and drew nondescript designs in the air with his outstretched arms. His energy was contagious, and when he fell into the crowd so that his guitarist could take a picture of him at the end of the show, we were in heaven. We loved it. We loved him. We loved Why? <

Has an oddly intense affinity for bunnies.

JOEY DALLA-BETTA