Review: Modest Mouse at Rabbit Rabbit
Since I hadn’t listened to Modest Mouse as consistently as I did when fresh out of college in the early 2000s, much less attended one of the band’s shows, I was unsure what to expect at the group’s Rabbit Rabbit performance on June 3.
To prepare, I Googled “what to wear to a Modest Mouse show” and found an informative Reddit thread from user capthazelwoodsflask: “If you were a REAL Modest Mouse fan, you would be going to the show nude. In fact if the band notices you in the audience wearing clothes during the show, [lead vocalist/guitarist] Isaac Brock himself usually stops the show, points to the clothes wearer, and asks something like ‘How are those clothes going for you?’”
This advice set the tone for what to expect for the evening — which was anything. But at the risk of looking prudish among nudes, I did indeed wear clothes, settling for the safe black tank and jeans.
When I entered Rabbit Rabbit, clouds were amassing above the stage and the sunny day’s heat gave way to a crisp mountain breeze just before the show began. Tickets for the evening had long since sold out, the outdoor venue was crowded, and I was relieved not only to find nearly everyone clothed (more on that in a moment), but also to discover that nearly every expression of live music fashion was represented. If what you wear to a live show is still, like it was in my college days, a certifiable indicator of the type of music you prefer, then this crowd was a heterogeneous confetti of genres.
There were dreadlocked dudes in tie-dye, neo-punk riot girls in black leather, grungy Gen Xers in flannel, jam-band followers in patchwork skirts and head wraps, hip-hop fans in chains and baggy pants, and frat boys in tight jeans and backwards ball caps. Few followed the advice of capthazelwoodsflask — except for one woman, whose fluorescent orange, open-threaded dress clearly revealed her nudeness beneath. Unlike the rest of us, she had immunity from any potential call-out from Brock during the show.
The diverse spectrum of fashion and generational range of these fans speak to the breadth of Modest Mouse’s post-pandemic reach. Over the course of 30 years and seven albums, the group’s performances have progressed from late grunge “twee” punk shows into one of the most anticipated live indie acts of the post-pandemic era. And when they walked onstage to rousing applause and launched into “King Rat” with playful riffs, festive horns, and deep baselines punctuated with Brock’s signature discordant vocals, the current ensemble of Russell Higbee (bass), Simon O’Connor (guitar), Damon Cox (drums), Benedetto Massarella (percussionist), and Keith Karman (multi-instrumentalist) entranced the audience with a set list that spanned the band’s career.
Throughout the first half of the show, attendees were fixated on the music — if not with their eyes, then with their bodies in ecstatic, trance-like movement. While Brock rarely spoke directly to the audience, he did share a vulnerable moment with fans when he reminisced about attending a birthday party sleepover as a middle schooler — a point in his life when he was still wetting the bed. He described the moment his dad explained the situation to his friend's father (and apparent caregiver that evening) who was obviously “shitfaced” drunk when they arrived. Like most of Brock’s music, this story foregrounded an essential loneliness that permeates his discography, a sense that things are not as they should be, and that human relationships can fail, leaving us isolated when we are most in need of connection, understanding, and acceptance.
However, about an hour into the set, Brock abruptly announced, “Goodnight, see you next year,” and immediately exited the stage with his bandmates. It was still daylight and not (yet) raining, and I saw many faces around me curl into confused, disappointed, and indignant expressions. Was this the end of the show, or an early encore? After about 10-15 minutes of waiting with no obvious sign that Modest Mouse was returning, nor that it was indeed the end of the show, a steady drizzle began to dampen our hopeful faces, and some people turned to leave. The exodus changed from a trickle to a stream, and the remaining die-hards pushed up several rows toward the front to fill the empty spaces, convinced there was more to come.
After about a half hour, and with the venue at roughly two-thirds capacity, the headliners returned to riotous applause and played an animated, truly engaging second set. Their extended encore began with the stoic yet hopeful “Gravity Rides Everything,” reassuring us that “it all will fall, fall right into place.” As the soft but steady rain lit up with flashes of red, yellow, and violet from the stage lights, crowd pleasers like the trippy “Dramamine” took on a new dimension, while the angsty punk strains in “Teeth Like God’s Sunshine” had the whole crowd moving in synchronicity as the rainbow of lights gave way to darkness.
The band closed with an unexpected progression from the cheerful, optimistic “Float On” to the darker “Spitting Venom,” an upbeat hybrid of folk- and punk-rock that addresses existential paralysis with peppy riffs. Art should disturb, and this closing combo left me in a state of cognitive dissonance.
Was the early exit a test of devotion, and this riveting closing performance our reward for sticking around? Whatever the case, those of us who remained were there for an experience of the band as they are now, sweetened by the pre-pandemic nostalgia of who they were before — and, in the end, that’s precisely what Modest Mouse gave us.
(Photos by Rey Castillo)
