measuring time against nation of language
It was February 2020 and I was trying to be a videographer. Through a friend, I met this guy named Rich who had a management/promotion company and was looking for people to film the gigs they were putting on. I'd been shooting editorial stuff for Alt Citizen, which was fun and intense and instructive, of course, but shooting editorial usually meant you were one of a bunch of people bumping elbows in the photo pit, all equal in the eyes of the access gods. There was extra cachet in being 'official', The Chosen Camera. I wanted to be on the list.
The first show I shot for his company was also the last. (I just dug up the email that coordinated the shoot—it was 2/6/2020, just a little less than a month before the first case of Covid was confirmed in New York). The show took place in Manhattan at The Dance, a venue with an SEO-unfriendly name that had opened late the prior year. Everything inside was crisp and white, like a photoshoot studio, and the lighting and sound were swish. On the bill: Pronoun (great), Pom Pom Squad (incredible), and a band I'd never heard of called Nation of Language.
Granted, I experienced everything that night under the familiar pinch of my shoulder rig, but Nation of Language were objectively fantastic. They played like three notes before I was all, why hasn't anyone told me about them yet?? The energy was pure New Order-style '80s synth-punk, from the pokey bass to the shimmery synths, and singer Ian Richard Devaney was really putting 110% into his stage presence; it's fine if you're a band that engages in studied slouchery, but I will always lose my shit if you, like, act like you really care about performing your music.
I left that show feeling so energized and excited. Then of course, the coronavirus hit NYC hard and I didn't see live music for a very long time, and I eventually quit doing videography, and ahhh isn't life just things starting and things stopping, plans made and plans canceled? [Jay-Z imminent fake retirement voice] Grand opening, grand closing.
That was my core NoL memory glowing in the brain furnace when I headed out to see the band over four years later at the Novo in downtown Los Angeles. The Dance's capacity was 250, and the Novo's is 2,300. An 820% increase in capacity, for all my math heads. (I used an online "percent change calculator" to get this number.) And though Devaney had upgraded his stage wardrobe from a simple white t-shirt to a romantically flowing button down, he and bandmate/wife Aidan Noell gave off that same exuberant, fully-committed energy I remembered from four years ago.
Joined by bassist Alex MacKay, they played selections from last year's Strange Disciple, including wonky delight "Weak In Your Light," and they also played a decent number of songs from their May 2020 debut album Introduction, Presence. What a treat to get to see "The Wall & I," a song that is always high on my list of songs to play meaningfully/wistfully as an Amtrak rolls out of its station, with such crispy production.
I think what makes this band special is that they've been playing with such a large and confident presence from the jump. There was no "awww we're just a little band trying to make our way" vibe. They have had mainstage energy since their inception, and every time they level up, it feels inevitable rather than surprising.
My only wish for their next tour is live drums, because I am always pointing at an electronic act and whining "live drums please." The audience was a little polite and reserved, there wasn't a lot of dancing, and in this flat technological time, we do need our bones urged toward motion by some primordial percussion. Gonna get a bumper sticker that says HIT STUFF WITH STICKS.
Beyond their elegant + propulsive synth reveries and maximum-yearn vocals, Nation of Language's mere existence on the Novo's stage made me feel like I... existed too? After all, that venue where I originally saw them closed after just four months of operation. And I was no longer up front trying to capture good content— I standing at the back of the audience with only a shitty iPhone camera to capture a few key moments. Things had changed, but the band was still there to measure time against, which is one of the best things a band can help you do.
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