Modest Mouse at the Hard Rock

The Hard Rock Live was filled with the wail of air-raid sirens as Isaac Brock, lead singer of Modest Mouse, took the stage in an eruption of yelps and howls on Tuesday, June 24.

If you haven't seen Brock in concert, you need only imagine a deranged lumberjack playing banjo, with Ol' Scratch himself running hell's band behind him, to approximate the experience. Now imagine that this unholy marriage of rock and the rustic wasn't horrifyingly awful.

The songs played from albums ranging from 1996's This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About all the way up to the most recent We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank - which went gold in June - were walls of sound filled with enough energy and power to split the amps in half and cause every tooth in the house to simultaneously abscess.

Even lackluster studio tracks like "Fire It Up" were given a new, well, it was too distorted and sinister to be life, but it was certainly a possession of some form.

A particularly impressive guitar lick was former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr's opening to "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes," which sounded like someone tape-recorded a banshee tearing off a siren's head, played in reverse.

In truth, it was often difficult to tell where songs began or ended in the lengthy two-hour performance as each would blend into one another in squall-like fury and then congeal into a slow plodding pulse before picking up again. Occasionally, the music would stop and Brock would address the audience in a friendly, soft-spoken voice. The contrast between mild man and mad-mannered was worth the price of admission alone.

More impressive than the song selection was the number of instruments employed in the performance. Stage hands scurried back and forth as they handed Brock and Marr new guitars for each song, while the bass guitarist would switch to cello and trumpet and who knows what else.

Somewhere between the tiny piano, two drum sets and the banjos, I lost track of who was playing what and when. Mostly, I was just amazed that they were still bringing out new guitars even toward the end. Inventors take note: if you build these guys some kind of robotic guitar dispensing device, you'll make a fortune and they'll save a fortune in stage hands.

The only blemishes on the performance were recurring technical problems. While discordance and feedback are to be expected of Modest Mouse (in fact, it is regarded as part of their signature sound), 20 seconds of ear-piercing feedback doesn't count as music unless you are Lou Reed or the Mars Volta.

The performance reached its climax as Brock dropped to his knees and began screaming into his guitar with the noise rising up behind him like flaming souls from hell itself. Sure, there was an encore after that, but there wasn't much left that they could do to top it.

As the audience began funneling out, a man near the exit remarked, "You know, I liked these guys before, but they're definitely my favorite band now."

I doubt he was alone in this sentiment.