Two similarly absonant and frenzied bands, Twin Peaks and Eagulls, stormed the stage early Tuesday evening at a sold-out Mercury Lounge, the first performance of a joint, month-long tour. The Chicago-based opening act, Twin Peaks, was young—young enough that the majority of their friends weren’t admitted to 21+ venue. Their performance seemed to reflect this logistical grievance on tracks like Fast Eddie and Natural Villain, where the three guitar playing members howled and sneered brusquely into sometimes toppling microphone stands. The four-piece group played with no reservations, screaming and wailing with a genuine, I-don’t-give-two-shits propensity to a crowd of spaced-out, mostly unmoving onlookers. A shoeless member of Twin Peaks went as far as probing at the audience, “Are y’all alive?” between numbers. It did little to relinquish their voracious performative energy, though. Their fuzzy, feedback musicality shone through on the rampant lull of Irene and on their most recently released track, Flavor.
The five-piece post-punk band Eagulls, from Leeds, England, headlined. Through jolting rhythmic shifts and forlorn-but-insubordinate chord progressions, the band quickly settled on a growly, volatile mood that the now-packed audience instantly approved of. Intermittent, 12-person mosh pits ensued during faster, more calamitous tracks like Hollow Visions and Nerve Endings. Frontman George Mitchell swayed listlessly and pseudo-drunkenly on Opaque, crooning sideways at the crowd as if he were trying to pretend they weren’t really there. Despite the contentious and confrontational undertones of their showcased material, mostly drawn from their debut self-titled LP (Partisan), the five members of Eagulls couldn’t help but sneak a sly smile here or there. Their set, raucous and mosh-afflicted, was definitely a cause for celebration.
Photos by Angel Eugenio Fraden