Dark Meat at the Hi-Dive
Running late as usual, I arrived just in time to see the end of Mark Mallman’s set. I will only say that he was highly entertaining, the keys were covered in leopard print and there was a lone dude dancing near the bar like the moves couldn’t stay inside him another second. Fantastic. I wish I had been more punctual.
It was a surprisingly short wait to get all of the members of Dark Meat onto the itsy-bitsy Hi Dive stage. I counted 12, but that was when the action had started, so I could have missed some. The instrumentation was stellar. A brass section, a piccolo, a violin, 2 drummers, singers, keys, guitars. Oh, my! The band nerd in me was in heaven.
When the first song started, it was laced with 70’s era harmony. Then the horns kicked in. POW! Again, the internal band nerd shivered. The varience of instruments, vocal stylings and genre not only held my attention late on a Thursday night, but kept me up thinking about how I could possibly describe the evening without the use of a thousand exclamation points.
By the end of the night, I was speechless… well as speechless as I get. And that just means me quoting the lead singer’s introductions to the songs. “This is a true story about when me and my cousin got into some shit.” A true story indeed.