Electric Six “Rocks Ass” At Dante’s

Tait Nucleus?, The Colonel

Opening with “Waste of Time And Money” from their latest album, KILL (which Valentine said they were contractually obligated to do), they followed with “Dirty Ball” from Flashy. At this point, after telling us he loved us, it was announced that “we’re now going to do some dance material and then go directly into the dance material,” beginning with the crowd-pleasing “Down At McDonnellzzz.” From the first note of the show, the audience were right there with him in the sexy, trashy world that the Six inhabits.

As background, be aware that the song “Improper Dancing” has a break towards the end where Valentine calls out “STOP!” and the music halts for two beats before he commands “CONTINUE!” and the dance goes on. This night, these six nutty bastards inserted an entire cover of INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart” in between “STOP” and “CONTINUE.” It was ridiculously wonderful, and one of those moments where it’s funny, then not funny, then hilarious as they kept playing. There was a lot of humor in the show, and a lot of tall tales going on, but the music itself was kept extremely tight. You could see that everyone was very serious about putting out the best-sounding show possible so that Valentine could have his crazy time.

Johnny Na$hinal

The band made sure to play their biggest hits, “Gay Bar” and “Danger! High Voltage!” and their medium-sized hits like “Down at McDonnellzzz” and “She’s White,” but they also dug into the deep cuts with songs like “Future Is In The Future.” Four of the songs were from their current album, and we were frequently informed that their record label (Metropolis Records, described as “the shit”) demanded they be played. Also noted several times was that drummer Percussion World was “from Medford Oregon,” though he in fact hails from Detroit. “Portland Oregon is the greatest city on earth. We’re an Oregon band—always have been, always will be,” said Dick Valentine, though to be fair, he also said, “No one here should trust me tonight.”

This may have been after he was given two Amaretto Sours by the Brazilians’ Nicky Cicchetti. The audience was excited and amped, but respectful; the only disturbance occurred when a big drunk guy tried to start moshing during “Gay Bar Part 2,” but it was quickly brought under control.

“Cheers!”

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