Cherry Glazerr; photo Lauren Ratkowski
Let’s get one thing straight: Cherry Glazerr fans absolutely, passionately, aggressively love Cherry Glazerr. That was certainly the theme last Friday night at The Constellation Room. That is, if you would call a never-ending stream of flailing limbs, banging heads, and crowd-surfing hooligans, love. I’ll use that word for now, but it was more like the souls of every teenager in the room were possessed by a ravenous lust for the gritty, groovy, rampaging pulse of Cherry Glazerr’s music.
But before I expand on that madness, I feel obligated to shine at least some of the spotlight on the opening bands. First off, it hardly even feels appropriate to label them as “openers.” Both Ian Sweet and Lala Lala played more like “co-headliners.”
You wouldn’t think three people could make so much noise, but the complex rhythms, engulfing reverb, and impassioned screaming of Ian Sweet was enough musical energy to fill a stadium. It was obvious that this band truly believes in the music they make, and so it was actually really odd that the crowd barely moved at all. From their stage presence alone, I expected more of a reaction. The band provided plenty of opportunities for people to go nuts. So, don’t be surprised if you show up to their headlining show at the Bootleg Theater Apr. 12, to find a room full of people doing just that.
Up next were Lala Lala, a group of gals from Chicago who are apparently on a mission to redefine garage rock. Singing into a microphone equipped with reverb and a digital harmonizer, the vocal melodies came out sounding like a group of women singing from inside a dark cave. When combined with frantic, specifically syncopated drumming, and perfectly punctuated bass lines, the resulting wall of sound stood towering over the crowd.
Having never been to a Cherry Glazerr show, and having just witnessed a vast discrepancy between the energy of the performance and the energy of the crowd, I really did not expect anything much. But as soon as the band walked on stage, I could feel that expectation beginning to crumble in the face of reality. The mania broke out almost immediately; the switch had been flipped.
By the time the band got to the chorus of their first song, the middle of the room had erupted into chaos. If you didn’t want to get swept away by the current, you had to stand on the very outskirts of the room, with all the parents who had let their children come on one condition. And even then, you couldn’t really escape the impacts of the incessant bodily collisions. It didn’t even seem to matter if the song was fast or slow, from their first album, or their latest album, Apocalipstick. The crowd ate it all up in one bite, without chewing.
Also, rather than glaze over it, I’d like to briefly touch on that whole “a lot of parents were there” situation. It was like the mean age of the crowd was 17, which definitely explains how a crowd can lose their minds and bodies for an entire set of songs. That there is a young man’s game. So too was the general level of debauchery within the room. Throughout the show, people threw water bottles, crashed into one another, jumped on stage and danced like they owned the place. And so I actually appreciated the youthfulness of the crowd. It brought a vigorous fervor to the show, and truly elevated it to new heights. For the energy of the crowd only further impassioned the band, creating this feedback loop of perpetual force. How the roof of The Constellation Room did not cave in and collapse, I still don’t know.
Founding member and singer/guitarist Clementine Creevy was both a part of, but also in control of this chaos. She commanded us all to move with her as her body often shook violently with the beat, her hands gripping the guitar like a weapon. All the while, she never let her antics compromise her performance. But it seemed effortless, as though the songs were born in the chaos. She often wandered to the side of the stage, or behind a curtain, her back turned to the audience, her head down, eyes closed, and her entire being ensnared by the magnetic pull of her music, I imagined her playing just as passionately in a room all by herself. Like the crowd, she too was possessed, as she led her band through the set basically without even stopping. It was as though her soul wouldn’t let her sacrifice the musical momentum for in-between-song banter. And boy did the band follow right behind her.
Although, “follow” is probably the wrong word. The whole band played as one, riding the same musical wave in unison as they crashed against the crowd, over and over and over again. Drummer Tabor Allen was a particular sight to behold. Bursting with a seemingly infinite amount of unstoppable energy, he played every song like it was his last. I seriously cannot stress enough how impressive his stamina was. He left it all out on the stage that night, as I’m sure he does every night.
The band had so completely decimated the audience that when they left the stage for the customary “encore chants,” the room fell ironically silent. You would’ve thought the whole place would immediately erupt into “whoop’s” and “one more songs.” But it was like the crowd was shocked they even had to ask, operating under the impression that their ceaseless dancing was all the encore chant they needed. When the band returned, they proceeded to squeeze every last ounce of juice left in the weary bodies of their audience. And so I left the show half-expecting a plaque to be placed on the wall in commemoration of the experience, and its refusal to stop dancing wildly, vividly in my mind.