Machinery Hall

at the Paradise
by Jen B.T.

Machinery Hall have played over 450 shows in just three years. They’re currently on tour in support of their newest release, Title. This band does not know the meaning of the word “stop.”

The evening began with a three-piece unit called Jabbering Trout. They were good here at the Paradise, but I could easily imagine them truly at their best playing in bars across Scotland. After their set, however, the bassist reported that he had just quit the band.

Machinery Hall, on the other hand, are very much together, and their playing was tight and strong. By their performance, you would never have known how tired and shaken down Mark, Dave, and Paul were. Aside from a hefty tour schedule, the band was recovering from a run-in with a drunk driver the previous night. They were to be commended for their tolerance of the crowd that evening. An attempt by Mark Nelson to garner audience participation resulted in three soused Irish girls crashing the stage. It was cute at first – the three visitors exchanged cat calls with Mark – but when enough was enough, it was requested that the girls be hauled off the stage. The crowd was rowdy and challenging, perhaps because people only had to shell out $1.04 for the show and found that they had more cash in their pockets to drink excessively. Maybe the summer heat and the fact that the audience was packed in like sardines had something to do with it. Or, conceivably, we all had a bad day at work, and Machinery Hall’s show was the outlet at which to vent. Whatever the reason, the crowd was a bunch of shitheads.

The proof of Machinery Hall’s solid abilities became apparent after the drunks had been tossed, the last encore was sung, the house lights had come on, and the amps had been loaded into the van for another performance in another city. I found myself walking away humming their breakthrough tune, “It Suits You Now,” and later, singing a new one called “Safe.”