Modest Mouse upholds the good and bad of indie cred

Nearly three years after Modest Mouse played the final note on its last North American tour, it… Nearly three years after Modest Mouse played the final note on its last North American tour, it returned to a mere seven stages across the country to give thousands of lucky fans a chance to see the indie rock legend.

However, being a rock legend of any sort comes with the usual antics.

After the crowd eagerly awaited the group’s arrival at Stage AE on June 22, Modest Mouse greeted it with a treat. Opening its show with the fan favorite “Gravity Rides Everything,” Modest Mouse had the crowd’s immediate attention. The soft, melodic guitar strums of The Moon & Antarctica’s second track soon gave way to “Bury Me With It,” a hit off Modest Mouse’s later album Good News For People Who Love Bad News.

Judging by the reactions of the members in the sold-out crowd, the concert was going well. Tie-dye clad 40-year-old hippies and their preppier counterparts in button-down shirts and pointed leather dress shoes stood shoulder to shoulder, belting out every word in unison, hands raised in the air. Even the dozens of Zooey Deschanel look-alikes who dotted the crowd managed to show their excitement and loudly voiced their approval of the band’s performance.

The crowd behind the pit was no exception. Concert-goers stood at attention and vigorously applauded whenever they were given the chance.

This wasn’t a concert for your casual iPod owner. This was a dream come true for the fans who had taken the group’s lyrics to heart for the past decade.

As Modest Mouse performed, the audience sent out screams of adoration and gazed wide-eyed at lead singer Isaac Brock. The night was young and the music the band performed spanned across its many albums.

Then the microphone began to squeak.

Maybe it was the way Brock assaulted the mic, grabbing it by the throat and yelling directly into its metal face. More than likely it was a technical difficulty, as a technician came on stage hurriedly to set up a new microphone for Brock, who wasted no time in abusing the new piece of equipment.

All technical mishaps aside, Brock and the six-piece crew, including two drummers, managed to put on the type of show the true Modest Mouse fans had paid good money for. The band left out the overplayed radio hit “Float On,” but it replaced it with tracks such as “Satin in a Coffin” that were more in tune with the key of the die-hard fans. Even its instrumentation went against the grain of the mainstream, ditching bass guitars for string basses and electric guitars for banjos and ukuleles.

After winning the crowd over with its compelling lyrics, dynamic musical sound and interesting instrumentation, the concert took a steep dive, and not the type where the front row of fans catch a leaping rock star.

With a half-hearted goodnight, Brock and Modest Mouse departed the stage. Although they weren’t fooling anyone — for a band of this caliber, an encore is not only expected, it’s guaranteed — the elongated standstill upset the crowd.

Substituting guitar solos and poetic lyrics for the sounds of cicadas chirping, Modest Mouse left its fans stranded at sea for almost fifteen minutes before once again taking its place on stage.

Whether it was merely a much-needed break for the band or flat-out arrogance, the crowd seemed visibly upset, and even a multi-song encore couldn’t fill the void left by its previous absence. Whatever it was, the band’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” was not enough to make amends, as the anticlimactic outro left fans yearning for more.

Banjos, string basses, microphone mishaps and awkward endings: indie rock at it’s finest.