The Von Bondies The Fever

When I saw the Von Bondies and the Fever at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, it was like the meeting of two seemingly disparate worlds. Dirty and gritty Detroit, say hello to stylized and slick New York. Shake hands. Be courteous. But once on stage, all rules and etiquette fly out the window, and it’s time to rock. Hard.

I’ve been to Detroit and have come to understand how bands like the White Stripes and the Von Bondies have been born from this city. Smaller native bands like the Detroit Cobras, the Detroit City Council and the Paybacks all fuel their rock with a little bit of soul and a little bit of blues. Their voices aren’t clean, they’re rough and jagged. They shake from the gut, right down to the steel-toed boots on the lead singer. Detroit peeps will throw beer bottles at you to cut your head open if you look at them the wrong way.

New Yorkers, by contrast, will sling actual beer at you to show affection. I’ve seen it at shows with bands like the Liars, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Panthers. But this kind of rock is a bit more fashioned and smoothed over, more arty than soulful. Just a tad more concerned with experimental sounds and hipster fashions.

So when the Von Bondies and the Fever played Bowery, I wasn’t sure what to expect really. It was like two drifting islands on opposite sides of the earth suddenly waded into each other, strange and inexplicable, and wholly fascinating. Each band, obviously influenced by different eras of music (the Fever more ‘80s dance rock and the Von Bondies more ‘60s garage rock), were also obviously of different theories of music. The Von Bondies are less concerned with catchy choruses and more concerned with badass guitar riffs and lead singer Jason Stollsteimer’s guttural howl. The Fever’s music is structured around everything catchy and danceable—from the drumbeats to the keyboards to the bass lines to the guitar parts to lead singer Geremy Jasper’s drunken party noise vocals. The combination was complementary, and the two acts clicked one right after the other.

The Von Bondies are engaging performers who aren’t afraid to draw the audience in with the way they rocked and moved on stage. The vibe in the Bowery really started to jive when the group revved up their single, “C’mon C’mon”. Overall, their music had bite and attitude, and not in an annoying pretentious way. Sometimes, much to my distaste, I felt like I was at a Vines concert, but then the music was saved by the contrasting ring of hipper-than-thou Carrie Smith and cool and collected Marcie Bolen singing back up vocals—an effective device the Von Bondies often use to break up Stollsteimer’s vocals. There was one amazing song towards the end of their set.

Spotted: One dread-locked lady headbanger. Bizarre! One skinny bearded hipster dancing to the drumbeat. Yay! A few drunks throwing the metal sign in the air. Huh?

It’s clear from the get-go that the Fever’s music is meant for people who want to escape from mundane life into a party-hardy boy fantasy of sex, drugs and well, more sex. It’s not meant to be thoughtful or caressing or introverted. It’s meant to jolt and electrify and raise your blood pressure. And most of the time they succeeded, though older songs like “Ponyboy” and “Bridge and Tunnel” from their Pink on Pink EP tended to fall a little flat, lacking that certain oomph and urgency they used to possess, while newer songs like “Labor of Love”, “Artificial Hearts”, and “Put It On You” exceeded expectations, oozing energy and spark. They have definitely spent the last six months evolving into a band that is more conscious of what works and what doesn’t. The band closed with the crowd-pleasing single, “Ladyfingers”. Yep, I couldn’t help but dance. That song gets me moving every time, even while I’m sober.

Spotted: Digital camera-happy bloggerazzi chicks (myself included). Woo hoo! Several still-life Von Bondies fans determined not to dance. Boo!