Parquet Courts at Royale, 3/31
Touring their latest record Sympathy for Life, eminent art rockers Parquet Courts delivered an excellent set to an eager crowd at the Royale on March 31st.
After an excellent opening set from Brooklyn’s L’Rain, the band took to the stage and promptly launched into “Application/Apparatus,” a track about isolation written from the perspective of a rideshare driver. Vocalist Andrew Savage’s monotonous delivery paired well with the steady lull of the accompanying drum machine and bass, which eventually swelled halfway through the track with the addition of percussive riffs, a fast-paced guitar solo, and fluttery synths.
It was also a homecoming show for bassist and Boston native Sean Yeaton, who engaged in the most theatrics out of all his fellow band members. Between whipping his hair around during songs he bantered with the crowd, going so far as to ask if anybody there had attended high school with him. He also shouted out his family, most of whom had made it out to the show that night.
Parquet Courts have been playing together for just over a decade at this point, and have an extensive catalog to show for their time together. Although the setlist consisted mostly of tracks from Sympathy for Life, the band made sure to pepper their setlist with older cuts from their discography. As an example, they followed “Application/Apparatus” up with two songs from 2016’s Human Performance, the title track and “Dust.” The latter was a particularly interesting choice in the context of the overall setlist, as its drawn out, repetitive, and droning instrumentation and lyrics gradually built up the crowd’s anticipation for whatever came next.
And what came next was astounding, as the band seamlessly – and I do mean that in the literal sense – transitioned into the punky fan favorite “Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience.” That build and release paid off, as the crowd went nuts when they heard the first few notes of the song and realized what was happening.
Similarly, the transition between “Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience” and the following song “Freebird II” sounded just as off the cuff as it did on the album. Parquet Courts dialed the energy of the crowd back a little with the comparatively relaxed “Freebird II,” although they still had the audience singing along to the track’s closing refrain of “free, I feel free.”
The band returned to art rock territory with their next song, “Marathon of Anger,” which saw Austin Brown take up lead vocals while A. Savage swapped to the keyboard. “Marathon of Anger” might have been the track on the setlist most closely resembling a Talking Heads song, with its inquisitive synthesizer blips and bloops, tight drum work courtesy of Max Savage, and noisy guitar-feedback solo towards the end.
Other highlights from the show included Sympathy for Life lead single “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” “Plant Life” – on which Brown and Yeaton shared vocal duties while A. Savage took up a delightful melodica, of all instruments – and “Light Up Gold II” from their 2013 EP of the same name, a real fireball of a track that sadly only lasted a minute. Regardless, the crowd were happy to jump about as if their lives depended on it.
“This is the encore” A. Savage announced, right as the band began playing “Stoned & Starving,” also from Light Up Gold. A playful and upbeat song, the track is as straightforward and literal as it gets, especially by Parquet Court standards – A. Savage quite literally wrote it about his experience navigating a late night snack run in Ridgewood, Queens, while he was, you guessed it, stoned and starving. The band then ended their set on a wistful and introspective note with “Pulcinella,” a near 7-minute long slow burner which is also the closing track from Sympathy for Life. A. Savage dropped his signature rasp as he delivered an earnest meditation on feeling in the digital age: How can he tell if what he’s feeling is authentic? Does he want to feel? Can he even feel? The crowd responded in kind – there was no moshing, only the gentle sway of heads. What a beautiful way to send us off into the night.
