If a Les Savy Fav show sometimes feels like an appearance by the hipsterati old guard, then the Music Hall of Williamsburg, with its cavernous concrete interiors, might be a new Masonic Temple. On Friday, the band preached to its choruses, and the chosen few bore witness to a new crop of silly, signature rituals. I mean, a giant seagull mask? I guess it's been stranger. No audience members used like ponies this time around. But maybe we're not supposed to talk about it.
Put another way, Les Savy Fav concerts are really a frenzied character study of Tim Harrington, backed somewhat stoically by a band that probably expects to got prodded, pushed, or unwittingly costumed by the deranged marauder himself. It's so tongue in cheek that everything is a joke, which means anything's game. Is he going to lick you as he makes his rounds through the audience, his mic chord crowd surfacing and knotting as he pushes towards the back? Who the fuck knows? I wouldn't take any chances.
Friday's show erred towards the cute, heralded at its opening by a $1,000 award to a little girl for her fan video of “The Equestrian.” Beer cans flew to the stage as the poor thing rode Harrington like a horsey and played her plastic bass in the corner. Other games followed. Harrington in a big seagull mask, mic hidden inside, difficulties with a crochet (“I need a crochet tech!”), painted-on stomach muscles, knotting up his mic chord on a water pipe and screaming at his band to loop the intro… it was classic.
