Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Spin The Spin: The Virgins at 3rd and Lindsley
Posted by The Spin on Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 11:24 AM
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The impossibly catchy chorus to The Virgins' very first song last night stated, "Teen lovers don't wait / Vacation is over." Or something like that. As best we could decipher the song seemed to be the band's mandate for teenage doin' it, so clearly these guys aren't the virgins they advertise themselves to be. Must be that irony stuff we've been hearing so much about.
Debauchery was sort of the running theme of the set: cocaine brunches, K-holes, more sex--all set to a crisp and clean new wave backdrop. For all that danger and excess, you've gotta pull off the child-proof cap to get to it. That's maybe why New Wave never really interested us as much as first wave punk--it's almost falsely advertised. Sure, first wave and post-punk can easily be just as contrived, but at least with those styles one gets the sense that this isn't for everybody.
That said, The Virgins have obviously done their homework. The Duran Duran-styled keyboards of their recordings were absent, so the band's Talking Heads influence was much closer to the surface with funky, syncopated basslines and dry guitars knifing through downbeat. Wah guitar popped up more than a couple times, and while our knee-jerk reaction is to curl into a ball and hide under a table when that happens, it was somehow tastefully done. Again, Talking Heads influence. Sometimes the singer sounded a bit like Elvis Costello, so they've got the familiarity thing going for them, too.
Since this was all happening at 3rd and Lindsley, the whole thing felt more like a showcase than a rock show. The crowd, while enthusiastic, largely remained seated, and the performance seemed more a demonstration. The Killers, Black Kids, Editors, The Bravery, Kings of Leon--the market is already glutted with this kind of sound, so The Virgins have got their work cut out for them in terms of standing above the fray. We'd say that they're probably less easily dismissable than any of those other bands, but The Virgins seem to largely be riding high on the strength of three choruses alone, the best of which was the first song of the set. The band may not be actual virgins, but they do climax early.
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