If one were to list all the sold out shows in Denver at any point in time, you’d probably be able to rattle off countless household names – The Rolling Stones, Garth Brooks, and all kinds other such trash no one should care about anymore.
Which makes a sold out show at 3 Kings Tavern featuring melancholy-synth party Body of Light, patch-cable MIDI sorcerers Xeno & Oaklander, and shoegazers gone-galactic-goth Drab Majesty all the more unlikely.
Yet there I was, stuck in a line in Baker, pretty excited that this cavernous, ragtag dive bar was going to be jam-packed with fellow emo weirdos, darksynth sad bois, and whatever the fuck you call Drab Majesty fans (more on that later). So with an empty stomach (first mortal error of the evening) I worked my way into 3 Kings and weaseled my way to the front of the stage to setup for what I could already tell was going to be a heater of an evening, if for no other reason than that the air was as still as the respirated breath of a dead cow’s colon.
Mercifully, Body of Light got their asses on stage right on time and started it off right with their contemplative synth-pop, creating a strange blend equal parts pleasant playfulness and contemplative isolation. Brothers Andrew and Alexander Jarson bumped their energetic but lyrically pained house jams to a good gathering of folks who showed up early. While their live sound didn’t recreate the low-end depth and spatial production of their recorded work, the songs were performed precisely and with gusto. The lads blitzed the sweltering audience with songs off their new album Time to Kill, “Don’t Pretend” being the most memorable of the lot, both from the set and from the album. This band is best with the tempo pinned and the 80s pop-hooks enabled.
Where Body of Light left off with the pleasant warmth of pop Xeno & Oaklander took over with their hallmark cold, dark-but-not-Pertubator-dark-wave sounds. Throughout their set synths and sequences were constantly bent, distorted, and glitched by modular-mage Sean McBride, while vocals from Liz Wendelbo wafted and wound through and over the never-quite-sublime, but constantly interesting and gratingly intriguing patchwork of beauty, sadness, and mystery. There was a consistent and gorgeous dissonance hanging over the room as the two swaggered between patch cables and switches, glitching and glowing as the crowd sweltered and cooed.
While we all waited for Xeno & Oaklander to breakdown their magnificent live-setup (which was simultaneously mind-blowing to observe and back-breaking to watch them tear down, knowing they were just going to do the same thing tomorrow) I could feel the full weight of the weirdos descending on the front of the stage and filling in whatever gaps were left in the crowd behind me. Some drunk chick smashed her way to the front only to give up as she reached me, leaving her knees and hands to fall somewhere between my ass and my inner thigh, depending on how handsy she felt from moment to moment.
And then for a fleeting second, I felt as though we were all about to be short-changed. After Drab Majesty’s gear was set up and turned on, Andrew Clinco and Alex Nicolaou came out for a sound check, devoid of their now unmistakable stage attire. For a confusing couple of minutes, I thought perhaps tonight we’d be getting a less visually intoxicating performance, but fortunately I’m just an idiot, and they quickly retreated to their cocoon backstage to metamorphosize into Deb Demure and Mona D. When they finally emerged, clad in sequenced patterned suits, transcendent white hair, and extra-terrestrial eyewear, they started the set of obviously, but excellently with Modern Mirror’s “A Dialogue”, which sounded cavernous and expansive, literally setting the stage for the rest of the set.
The last time I saw Drab Majesty, I didn’t even know who they were, so I didn’t know what to listen for, but with a full year of their catalog in rotation, I had high hopes, expecting to hear walls of reverb-drenched, nail-picked guitar and wanting to be left awash in rich waves of celestial synthesizers. I was not disappointed. The sheer magnitude of their sound was breathtaking. I was also taken with how dialed and razor sharp their live performances have become over the past year. I’m not convinced there is a demographic that can’t be swept up in the dazzling visual and aural bliss Drab Majesty are producing at the moment. I’m constantly waiting for bands to take their songs to that next sonic stage – adding distortion, doubling the cadence, overdriving at the appropriate time – and songs like “Oxytocin” deliver on this desire, both on the recorded work and in the live performance. When Deb smashed that overdrive pedal as the song soars into another plane, I took my hearing protection out and let the wall of sound wash me spotless. I can swear the final passage was played at least another 8 bars, but I doubt it was. Who cares! It felt like it was. Likewise, now-classics off 2017’s The Demonstration such as “Dot in the Sky” and “Cold Souls” were performed with the mercurial accuracy of a pair in full live form.
Drab Majesty evokes a satisfaction I have been trying to shape with words ever since they appeared on stage at the Oriental Theater last year and the first guitar notes rang out of the amplifiers. Other magnificent acts achieve this as well, but only the best. The term I’ve used is “instant nostalgia”, which I would define as the instantaneous feeling one experiences as they listen to a never-before heard song that takes every turn you felt you wanted it to. Not predictably, just organically moving in the direction of your heart, simultaneously fulfilling a wish and forming a longing that tastes like something you dreamt, but also perhaps lived.
That’s what your missing if you decide to skip the Drab Majesty show. The good news is the tour continues with dates in North America and Europe. To feel instant nostalgia, following the link below to check out their remaining tour dates.
Remaining Drab Majesty Tour Dates
Drab Majesty
Body of Light
Zeno & Oaklander
Photos and words by Josef Bachmeier