Concert Review: The Faint Make Your “Ego Werk” at Bowery
Watching The Faint, at Bowery Ballroom, I kept on thinking of Skins/The Gossip’s video for “Standing In The Way of Control.” In it a bunch of teenagers, basically, losing their minds, having a blast, and randomly dancing with a stranger in a bear costume while biking around a mansion they broke into. It is a titular video for No F**ks Given, of which The Faint represent this FULLY!
First, their show is a strobe light spectacular. Had they not been paying music, the show could have passed as a Light Show for children embracing the wonder of illumination. Yet, I am not saying that facetiously. I am saying that as someone who realized music can change the meaning of anything as simple as a light bulb. While some artists claim heavy lighting takes away from a musician’s energy, their lights embodied it. A flashing light is nothing, but then you put songs such as, “Quench The Flame” or “Paranoiattack,” and, suddenly, a strobing light is symbol for how revved up a person can feel while their life is at stop.
Lyrically, The Faint’s music lives on a contrast. Personally, music professor told me that to be a musician you have to be a little insane and a little poetic; to be an artist you have to know how to make the insane poetic. The Faint are genius. In energy and style, they synchronize chaos and fun to imbue within their crowd’s minds that letting go is not anarchy. It is limiting yourself that is truly deranged. Hence, in song and speech, they encourage the audience as if fun is a wild temptation; trying to alter, in their heads, that hiding your heart and its desires is not sophisticated. It can be the biggest mistake in trying to gain grace. Luckily, Todd Fink’s voice could turn fools into brighter men.
Each member shook themselves up and down with their instruments as if they were avoiding their surrounding lights, like a minefield. Meanwhile, Fink’s voice amped their music as a symphony of brilliance and madness. Honestly, you will not find anyone that matches dance with punk so well and does it through simple, vocal annotation. Hence, the audience moshed and mashed together trying to decide whether to fist-pump the air or the person next to them. Such a balance is not easy to achieve, but The Faint do so perfectly. For More Information on The Faint Click Here.
