Show Review & Photos: Divine Fits @ Terminal West 10/29/12

Posted by William Haun on Friday, November 9, 2012

Ask any indie music fan you find if they are fans of Spoon, New Bomb Turks, Handsome Furs, or Wolf Parade and you’ll get a resounding “yes.” Many will probably say “Yes, all of the above.” Put members of all of those acts on one stage together and they are more of a “dreamgroup” than a “supergroup.” It was that superdreamgroup that turned Atlanta’s Terminal West into a packed house on a Monday night as fans poured in to see Divine Fits.

Despite this being the band’s 19th show in 14 days (yea, you read that right!), its members were all in good spirits and full of energy. Brit Daniels and Dan Boeckner bounced around the stage taking turns behind the microphone. The two laughed and smiled like young musicians thrilled to be performing on stage for the first time. They, however, are rock veterans and their entertaining and domineering stage presence showed that.

Drummer Sam Brown was so rock steady that he was hardly noticed in the back. Never missing a beat and providing that strong rhythmic foundation to every song.

Multi-instrumentalist Alex Fischel was manned the synths and at times became so engrossed in his playing that even Brit and Dan were watching him and chuckling. Give that guy a keyboard solo and he will run with it!

Despite being a relatively new band, fans already knew the words to half their songs. “My Love is Real” and “Would That Not Be Nice” were obviously favorites and garnered some serious sing-a-long-ing. The former was especially exciting as Boeckner abandoned his guitar to put all his energy & focus into belting out the lyrics to the crowd.

As is often the case for bands with only one album under their belts, they played several covers in addition to their own material. A killer rendition of Frank Ocean’s “Lost”, a fitting tribute to Rolling Stones with “Sway” and a moving show closer in Rowland Howard’s “Shivers” (made famous by Nick Cave and also found on their album).

The big surprise of the night came at the start of the encore when Atlanta’s own Bradford Cox (Deerhunter/Atlas Sound) joined them on stage for a raucous cover of Ramones’ “53rd & 3rd” (see video below). With Hurricane Sandy pummeling the northeast at that very moment, Cox remarked that 53rd & 3rd were probably underwater.

Supergroups come (always with a lot of hype) and go (often very quickly) but this is one that will stick around. There are obviously not egos butting heads and the members each have a very evident passion for making and performing great music. That is a recipe for success and we can’t way for the NEXT thing called Divine Fits.

*** Merge Records is putting A Thing Called Divine Fits on sale today for 25% off the regular price at the Merge store for 24 hours (starting at 12pm EST). Enter code 25OFF at check out.