White Fang at The Clatter House, June 20th 2008

White Fang is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you're going to get. They proved it again last Friday at the Clatter House. Have you ever attended a house show that started at 7 pm? Me either. Well, maybe an all-day fest, but an evening house show on a Friday night of all nights, starting at 7 pm? Whoa!

After that initial shock to the system, White Fang was supposed to be the opening act. Of course, this being a show with White Fang on the bill, that didn't hold up (partially because the however-many-piece didn't get there until an hour or so past the scheduled start time). Soon the Marriage Records act was moved to 8:30 or 9 pm, and that too went out the window once the band had rightfully negotiated its spot as headliner.

Informed that White Fang's headline set would begin at 11pm, fellow LocalCut contributor Michael Mannheimer and I didn't head over until then, but alas, no White Fang set was yet a-brewin'. So after a period of socializing, we headed back to the Wonder Ballroom, where I snapped some quick photos of Blue Giant's debut show for this other little blog you've probably never heard of.

Upon approaching the Clatter House, we knew the rebel rousing White Fang had already begun—we could feel it with our finely tuned musical intuition—so immediately after parking we took off. We didn't walk. There was no brisk jog. Instead, the two of us achieved a pace better suited to Olympic hurdlers as we bounded towards the house, up the cement stairs and down to the basement to catch the tail-end of "Breakfast." There was but one more planned song to go at that point, but luckily White Fang (seven-strong with White Rainbow's Adam Forkner on drums) were coerced into another one-song encore.

Even in the few minutes the band took to get its wits about it before beginning its final number, the ruckus didn't dissipate. From the moment White Fang's army of percussionists began to lay down beats, people from all sides of the room flung themselves into the center to recreate a moshpit. Lead singer Erik Gage threw himself in, too, by way of rolling on the floor. There was a moment of wonder: "Will he survive it?" The crowd parted in near disbelief, a bit like the Red Sea, allowing him to come out unscathed as people continued to mosh—just not directly on top of of his grounded and kicking body.





























Links:
White FangSpace
White RainbowSpace
The Clatter HouseSpace
White Fang T-shirts for sale (for rent money)
Marriage Records