Middle East | Cambridge, MA | June 24, 2008
Upstairs at the Middle East can be a blessing or a curse because of it's size and design - if you pack the place you feel like rock stars - if your show starts an hour late and there are still only fifty people there to see you - you might feel a little less like cool.
Fortunately cool was not lacking from either the sunglasses at night wearing bassist Rich Mullens, drummer Brad Hargreaves - who resembled the love child of Stifler and Tom Morello (hey, men can have babies nowadays - haven't you heard), and certainly not from the ginormous Jack White look a like singer Daniel Davies. Davies also happens to be Ray Davies' of the Kinks son - anyone ever heard of nepotism? Luckily though it seems as much talent as sheer luck has been passed on from father to son - something that can't always be said in this sort of situation.
Although opening for the Burning Brides, YLD was given a spot opening for the Foo Fighter's upcoming tour. It makes sense as their style would probably work better in an arena than a small club - their chugging non-stop basslines were interspersed with the occasional guitar solo or drum breakdown - designed for mass comsumption.
Not many folks associate rocking out with pregnancy so there were a few questioning glances when Melanie Coats, bassist for Burning Brides took the stage several months pregnant. Before starting their set lead singer Dimitri Coats let the crowd know - in the most adorably proud way that it was their child - and then they were off. Once they started they didn't slow down for anything.
Although the music had a tinge of anger to it there was nothing but happiness coming from the couple - he screaming his way through faster songs like "Poor House" and slower ones such as "Flesh and Bone". They played together flawlessly with her going absolutely buckwild jumping around to her own bass playing and him moving in the same time.
The crowd may have been a little thin for the volume but both bands played with an intensity as if the crowd was 5000 and that means an awful lot to those fifty who did show.