The most frustrating aspect of Mac DeMarco is that he is seemingly unwilling to accept his own gifts. Although he plays an often sensitive and willingly lovely style of music, he covers it up with as much restroom humor and schoolboy antics as he can.
DeMarco led his band to the House of Blues stage on Monday to the strains of Haddaway's "What is Love," and everyone involved spent the rest of the evening trying to make the worst Saturday Night Live sketch come off like George Bernard Shaw.
The stage was pelted with undergarments; at one point DeMarco hung a bra on his microphone stand and proclaimed that he got a "free bra."
With so much adrenaline from screaming fans, you would assume that the group was going to tear through a building-shaking setlist. Not the case.
DeMarco's music is saturated with choruses and other affectations of late '80s pop-goth. It's been compared to soft rock and owes more than a little to bands such as Real Estate before him. But while that act is as stoic as its sound, DeMarco thrives on the immaturity of his cohorts, who seem desperate to upstage him.
Case in point? The David Lee Roth-like antics of his guitarist, Andrew Charles White, which should be enough to get him kicked out of ten bands. As shirtless as he is obnoxious, White sarcastically danced through every one of DeMarco's heartfelt lyrics. He went on long, unfunny rants about the Kennedy assassination while vaping.
Spending time with DeMarco and company is like being stuck in a college dorm with guys playing video games and making sex jokes until 4 a.m., and you can't get an Uber.
The group hints at a jam band element at times, using the same trippy effects, and they probably will share the same audience as Widespread Panic if they continue along the solo-laden path at which their encore hinted.
There were genuine moments of transcendence on Monday, specifically whenever DeMarco would jet-propel through one of his soaring choruses. It's a rich and lucky man who can pen them like he does; "Heart Like Hers" and "Ode to Viceroy" on their own are evidence enough as to why he has drawn such a loving audience. When he somehow made it to their subtleties, the onstage antics fall thankfully into the background.
"Chamber of Reflection" and "Still Together" closed out the regular portion of his set. He is shrewdly aware that they are two of his strongest compositions.
But one wonders why DeMarco feels the need to punish his audience to the extent that he does. The group closed with a horrendous and silly cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" before devolving into a sloppy blues jam, while they just happened to know how to play all of the solos throughout.
They knew their captive audience (no ins and outs at HOB) would accept whatever they threw at them. It was one of the most spoiled-brat rockstar moves I've seen. The group continually mocked the idea of being at the House of Blues, as if it wasn't cool enough for them.
But watching DeMarco, whose cartoon voices into the microphone were akin to a roadie lingering too long at soundcheck, it seemed he was exactly where he belonged.
More photos from the show
About the openers
The forced contradictions of a Mac DeMarco show were indeed on full display Monday night, exemplified by the opening act, Walter TV. The group includes members of DeMarco's backing band and it's dubious to simply label them as support; the backing musicians often stole the spotlight from DeMarco himself. The group has a track called "Surf Metal" which summarizes the "just kidding" aesthetic of nearly every musician onstage last night.
Walter TV made an effort to have their live performance come off like the cluttered recordings they have made thus far, which include Blessed (made available in March of this year) and 2012's Appetite. The group closed with a cover of Jane's Addiction's "Jane Says," and it suddenly became obvious what an influence the nervous and high-pitched antics of that band's lead singer, Perry Farrell, have likely had on this gang of bands.
Farrell is the original psychotic good vibes surf hippie, and that could almost act as a descriptor for many of these musicians if they weren't (A.) Canadian and (B.) more like frat boys than anything else.
The group sounded more indebted to Porno for Pyros than Jane's Addiction. The opening track of Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battle the Pink Robots played immediately after they left the stage, which was appropriate.
The following act, Alex Calder, should be commended for a remarkable lack of energy. In front of a packed crowd, the group played with all the intensity of a touring band playing to an empty sports bar on a weeknight. The band took the stage nonchalantly and with a pronounced anti-showmanship.
Like DeMarco, Alex Calder hails from Montreal, which apparently has a music scene that caters to handsome young men in bands who wear baseball caps. The group daydreamed though a lukewarm set, free of drama and with the occasional tricked-up tempo.
Alex Calder is still in his house show phase, and yet here he was at the House of Blues, largely due to his association with the much more aggressive DeMarco.
