Live Review: Future of the Left @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

After spending a week at the CMJ Music Marathon I was a bit worried about what music has been presenting us with lately. Most of the bands of that week seemed to be trying to cash in on trends, sounding eerily similar to each other, and blending into a huge blur that was really difficult to differentiate between. Luckily there are bands out there that can remind you of the power of rock music in one fell swoop.

On Friday night Future of the Left restored my admiration for music quickly and thoroughly. The band straight up rocks for every moment that they are on stage. Even when they are playfully bantering with the crowd they are still in complete control of the stage, chiding the audience, making fun of bands they abhor, and generally showing that they're having a great time despite their tendency towards music that is as angry as anything I've ever heard.

Prior to Future of the Left the steadily building Music Hall crowd was given sets from up-and-coming, Brooklyn psych rockers Dinowalrus and Brooklyn's Freshkills. Dinowalrus were up to the task, playing the big Music Hall stage for the first time since last year's After the Jump Fest, they were full of rambunctious energy that propelled front man Peter Feigenbaum across the stage. Their music is wild, creative, energetic, loud, and pretty amazing to behold. The sounds run wild just as Feigenbaum does on stage. His band of cohorts aren't quite as bouncy on stage, but we'll chalk that up to being behind the drums and behind a big table of synths for most of the night. As good as they were on Friday there set was a bit shorter than what we would have hoped for, then again we did get there just a little bit late.

Freshkills didn't have quite the same energy that bookended them during Friday night's show. The band is a solid appropriation of garage rock, but for whatever reason they mostly just stand in a line at the front of the stage for their set. It was more of a come down than anything else on Friday, but the sounds they are cranking out aren't half bad. Still if they could have somehow taken the intensity up a notch I might have been captivated, but as it was it got a little bit boring to behold for the full 30-minutes making primo drinking time!

Following Freshkills must have been a cake walk for Future of the Left. The band took the crowd from half empty to more or less full and from practically no energy to full out mosh pit by the end of the first song, a fantastic rendition of "Arming Eritrea" and flat out killing it from there. The band tackled most of their most recent album, Travels with Myself and Another, threw in a bit of Curses and generally nailed every bit of music they performed for us. Taking a break only to take shots at Oasis or each other, the band seemed to be flying high performing with an energy that never depleted.

Instead of doing a traditional encore the band decided it would be better to take apart the drum kit and place it all over the stage while the feedback continued to play on. Yeah, it's a page straight of Nirvana and The Who's playbook but it works to really send home the point that this show is over now, get the fuck out, and remember what you saw here! And believe me, that audience will remember that show for quite some time!