REVIEW: Titus Andronicus at Bearsville Theater
09/04 @ Bearsville Theater, Woodstock
“we’re right back at the same show we attended 15 years ago. Stickles is playing the same tattered Gibson Les Paul; Betson has taken his spot as his right hand man and Harm has taken his “rightful place” on the throne.”
On Friday, September 4, Titus Andronicus came to Bearsville Theater in Woodstock with promises of playing “only the hits.” Billed as “Titus Andronicus Performing Greatest Hits 2008-2015 with Eric Harm on Drums”, the set promised to be a throwback to Titus’ heyday when they released four tour-de-force records in 7 years, one of which was an extended allegory about the American Civil War and another of which was a 29-song rock opera about manic depression. Titus’ whole thing is “go big or go home.” The following is a stream of consciousness retelling of the evening’s events.
Setting: Volkswagen EV on the road down to Woodstock (because we care about the environment and fuck Elon Musk). On the way down to Woodstock with Fudge and Beam, I realized this crew (plus a few others) went to see Titus Andronicus 15 years ago at Music Hall of Williamsburg.
That night, Fudge got his glasses broken in the pit and had to be guided home like a grandfather struggling with senility, while another member of our crew, JJ, broke his sandals in the pit.
While I could call into question the wisdom of wearing flip-flops to a punk show, the important thing here is to note how he navigated the streets of Brooklyn sans footwear. We found a Duane Reade and the only kind of footwear they had available were insoles; not ideal.
The solution: buy insoles and some athletic tape, grab two plastic bags and MacGyver the shit out of some makeshift shoes. It actually kind of worked. He made it back to my place without any glass in his foot so that was a win.
But that was 15 years ago when we went big and then went home in tatters. It was epic. Now, in our late 30s, tonight promises to look a lot different.
Since the show is going to be Titus’ greatest hits from 2008-2015, I propose a fun car ride game of trying to predict the set list to see how many we get right. It lasts all of 10 seconds but I can’t give up the ghost so I sit in the back and complete the task on my own. Here’s what I got:
From the 2008 album, The Airing of Grievances: “Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ” and “Titus Andronicus”
From the 2010 album, The Monitor, the aforementioned allegory about the Civil War: “A More Perfect Union,” “Titus Andronicus Forever,” “No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future,” “Theme from Cheers,” and “The Battle of Hampton Roads”
From the 2012 album, Local Business: “Ecce Homo,” “Still Life with Hot Deuce on Silver Platter,” “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape with the Flood of Detritus” and “In a Big City”
From the 2015 album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, the aforementioned 29-song rock opera: “Fired Up,” “Dimed Out,” “Fatal Flaw” and “Come On, Siobhan”
Titus even goes big when it comes to their song titles.
That’s 15 songs and for an early career-spanning set, that feels appropriate. Not that I need an excuse to wax poetic about some shit, but since Titus opened the door with a career retrospective show, I’m going to go ahead and turn this into a career retrospective review.
But first, let’s finish up this car ride and get to the show.
Colleen Green opens up the show. She’s a great songwriter. Clever and witty lyricism with catchy hooks. Consensus among the crew is she needs a band. The drum machine isn’t translating to the live setting.
In between sets, we do a lap and Beam gets locked into a conversation with a gentleman who is unfamiliar with Narragansett as a popular, cheap American beer. Fudge and I can’t be bothered so we check out the merch stand.
Whilst perusing the merchandise and avoiding unwanted conversations, I start to consider the journey I’ve had with the music of Titus Andronicus.
For music lovers, it’s often difficult to lock down a “favorite band.” It changes day-to-day and season-to-season. But even so, there are artists who are mainstays on that ever-changing list of favorites. For me, Titus Andronicus is one of those mainstays alongside the likes of The Replacements, Bruce Springsteen, The Hold Steady and Kendrick Lamar.
Titus Andronicus, for those that are unfamiliar, is really just Patrick Stickles. Since the inception of the band, it’s just been Stickles and a rotating cast of super-talented musicians backing him. The credit sheets on the records are typically 15-plus contributors long, but the music and lyrics are all written by Stickles. The credit sheet is matched in size by the list of “former members” on Wikipedia.
Which brings me to another fun game to play. Let’s create the “classic lineup” for Titus Andronicus from 2008-2015. With all due respect to all other former members, here’s who I’m drafting:
Eric Harm on drums. There’s a reason he’s named on the poster. Legend on the kit and played on all four of the “classic” records.
Liam Betson on guitar. Apart from Stickles, the longest tenured member of the band. Gotta have him.
Amy Klein on guitar. One of the most energetic and magnetic performers I’ve ever seen. Wielded the axe from 2010-2011 and contributed violin for live renditions of songs from The Monitor.
Adam Reich on keyboards and guitar. Perhaps 4 guitars is too many but Diarrhea Planet made it work and Stickles name checked them on Local Business so…
Julian Veronesi on bass. Played on Local Business and The Most Lamentable Tragedy. Slaps the bass “big time” (I Love You, Man is super underrated).
Queen’s “We Will Rock You” is pumping from the stage and I reckon that means it’s show time. Let’s do this!
I. “Okay, I think by now we’ve established, everything is inherently worthless. Then there’s nothing in the universe with any kind of objective purpose.” - “Ecce Homo”
Titus takes the stage in a whirlwind and rips through the opening three songs from Local Business, “Ecce Homo”, “Still Life…” and “Upon Viewing…” - they don’t play “In A Big City” so I’m ¾ on my predictions so far — I’ll take that!
The 2012 album served as a followup to the 2010 epic The Monitor. Stickles and co. went into the recording process with the express purpose of stripping everything down and creating a straightforward rock record. It’s instructive that they open this career retrospective set with songs from this album as it allows us to get at the core of what makes up a great Titus Andronicus song.
The lyrics. Stickles is like Kierkegaard meets Walt Whitman. He’s a nihilistic poet of the highest order. The above lyrical passage is the opening of “Ecce Homo,” the first track on the album. It serves as a representative thesis statement for both the record and the band at large.
Riffs on riffs on riffs. For all the high-minded lyricism and extended allegories that make up Stickles’ songs and albums, at their core, Titus Andronicus is an all caps ROCK N’ ROLL band. Two minutes into “Ecce Homo,” after delivering the opening monologue about the meaninglessness of existence, Stickles loudly and proudly announces “guitar solo” before taking center stage and shredding.
Sing-alongs. On the one hand it’s hilarious that Stickles loves a sing-along given the lyrical content. On the other hand, what’s better than a little collective catharsis about our shared destiny as worm food? At the end of “Upon Viewing…”, Stickles delivers the truly dour line “of their wisdom, all that remains are stains, because just like me they were made to be thrown away.” The “thrown away” is then repeated 14x with every member of the band and crowd joining in the chorus of doom.
II. “The world screams out in agony and you don’t care, but should the shit hit the fan I just pray you will not be spared. FUCK YOU!” – “Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ”
We’re now in The Airing of Grievances portion of the set and Titus plays the self-titled track “Titus Andronicus” and the album opener “Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ” (⅚. Let’s go!!!)
The band’s debut album opens with the above lyrical passage from “Fear and Loathing…” Delivered over a single guitar being played from what sounds like a million miles away, everything eventually falls away as every voice present in the studio screams “Fuck you!” at the top of their lungs.
There’s this thing that rappers often do where, on their debut single, they craft the song as a kind of press release about who they are, where they came from and what they’re about. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony did this with “Thuggish Ruggish Bone,” Snoop Dogg did it on “What’s My Name?”. Eminem also joined in with “My Name Is…” and then again with “The Real Slim Shady.”
This song is Titus Andronicus’ version of that. We’re Titus Andronicus, we’re from New Jersey and we’re here to tell God to fuck off and die.
III. “I’ll incite a riot, fire flying all around. When I’m crying out, I’m howling with the wild hounds. Don’t wanna buy an ounce, for me, the right amount is the entire pound.” – “Dimed Out”
Welcome to The Most Lamentable Tragedy portion of the set where Titus delivers four “hits”: “No Future IV: No Future Triumphant,” “Fatal Flaw,” “Fired Up” and “Dimed Out” — I got the four songs part right but chose “Come On, Siobhan” instead of “No Future IV…”. 9 out of 11 is strong. If this were a free throw shooting contest, I’d be like Mark Price.
The above lyrical passage comes from track 12 of the 29 song epic rock opera. As previously mentioned, the opera is an extended metaphor about Stickles’ own battle with Bipolar Disorder. The album’s basic framework is that the narrator, representative of Stickle’s depressive side meets his doppelgänger (“he don’t act like me, but we lookalike”), representative of Stickles’ mania, and hijinks ensue.
“Dimed Out,” sung from the perspective of the doppelgänger, is full on mania. Stickles’ use of turning up an amplifier to max volume is the perfect metaphor here. This song goes so hard.
IV. “And now that I’m older, I look back and say, what the fuck was it for anyway?” – “Theme from Cheers”
We’ve arrived at The Monitor portion of the set, a complicated album in the Titus discography. It’s outstanding. A monument of ambitious punk-rock executed to near perfection.
However, it’s also a record that Stickles has expressed some level of regret over. Not in a way where he disowns or dislikes the work that he did, but rather over the way it was received and how it overshadowed a lot of the later work he and the band did.
None of that comes through in the performance as Stickles and company rip through “No Future Part Three…,” “The Battle of Hampton Roads,” “A More Perfect Union” and “Titus Andronicus Forever.” I end the night 12/15 on my predictions. The “Theme from Cheers” prediction was always a bit more wishcasting than a real prediction.
They end the set with an extended jam on “Titus Andronicus Forever” and Stickles takes the time to introduce each member of the band as they take a turn on a solo. This is my 15th Titus Andronicus show and at least 12 of those times, this was the conclusion to proceedings.
Sure, the musicians on stage may have been slightly different and the faces in the crowd not exactly the same, but really we’re right back at the same show we attended 15 years ago. Stickles is playing the same tattered Gibson Les Paul; Betson has taken his spot as his right hand man and Harm has taken his “rightful place” on the throne.
So in Stickles’ own words, it may be fair to ask “what the fuck was it for anyway?”
It’s the same as it’s always been. Getting together with your friends, drinking a few drinks and screaming at the top of your lungs: “You will always be a loser, and that’s okay!”
Photo by Corey Dempsey