This past weekend, the Secret Machines earned their place as the kings of whatever genre they are inventing every night with their absolutely mind blowing live shows. Which is to say, they were cosmiclyamazingshimmeringly great when we saw them on Saturday with Autolux and Moving Units, the first of two sold out shows at Irving Plaza.
Cali-based mood rockers Autolux opened up the show with a set of songs that lay somewhere between Oxford '92 and the last really good Sonic Youth album. The gits and vox were highly focused, but their drummer Carla's "jazz hands" stylings really stole the show.
Next up were LA disco mutants Moving Units, who managed to do quite a bunch of moving around despite being squeezed into some very snug jeans. After a moody opener, they dropped "Between Us and Them", a killer track off their new record (holler at that bassline kids!) and kept the energy levels on the way up for the rest of their set.
The Secret Machines took the stage right when the vitamins started kicking in and opened up with an explosively loud version of "Sad and Lonely". The rest of their hour long set included lots of newer songs (including one particularly dope track that went "money is what I want") and some older favorites ("Pharaoh's Daughter", "You Are Chains".) The actual set was brilliant, but it was the one two punch encore of "First Wave Intact" and "Nowhere Again" that made you believe that if things were a little more perfect, the Secret Machines would be the biggest band in the free world. Maybe we're bugging out a lil bit when we say it was everything a rock show should be, but between the major league light show and the massive swells of custom guitar effects and the kick drum hits that shook the balcony where new fan David Bowie was sitting, it was apparent something major was going down. Blast off...
