TY SEGALL AND THE MUGGERS at the Danforth Music Hall, Friday, March 4. Rating: NNNN
Ty Segall‘s sold-out Danforth Music Hall show on Friday night was reminiscent of the teenage insanity at Mac DeMarco’s Yonge-Dundas Square appearance during NXNE in 2014. Both acts had been doing their own, weird thing for years before blowing up once a younger audience caught on.
Both also make music kooky and raucous enough to inspire stage-diving, and the California garage rocker must’ve told security not to stop fans from climbing onstage, because an endless queue of them dove from it all night long until it eventually grew wearisome, seemingly even for Segall.
One shirtless stage-diver in a bandana, also bold enough to banshee-holler into an unattended microphone whenever he got the chance, inspired the funniest moment: “I don’t like that guy,” Segall dead-panned after the kid had flung himself from the stage for the umpteenth time. You can bet most of the crowd had been thinking the same thing.
Aside from the brazen boldness of mostly shirtless boys scoring fist-bumps from their bros after successfully reenacting a moment from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video, the show was sonically powerful and cohesive – unexpectedly so considering the splintered, abrasive feel of Segall’s eighth album, Emotional Mugger, filled with strange evil-baby voices, messy experimental freak-outs and which he played front to back.
At the start and midway through the set, Segall wore the oversized-baby-head mask seen in videos and imagery from this album (when wearing the mask, Segall goes by “Sloppo”), and the songs were infused with crazed power thanks to a supergroup band consisting of Mikal Cronin on bass and saxophone, Kyle Thomas (aka King Tuff) on guitar, two members of Wand, and guitarist Emmett Kelly.
Interestingly, little of these collaborators’ sound (well, maybe Wand’s) has seeped into Segall’s current one. For example, there was nothing Tuffian about Thomas’s guitar-playing, especially as the glammy Kelly took most of the leads. Wand’s Cory Hanson added the most: excellent falsetto harmonies, adventurous synth textures, a mime-like outfit and fluorescent lips. (Segall introduced him as “Pizza Mouth”.)
Drummer Evan Burrows, also of Wand, stood out simply for being an incredible drummer, playful and dynamic, especially his cymbal work and during the more psychedelic, jammy moments. Most of those came near the end of the 90-minute set, which also featured older tunes like Manipulator and, in the encore, The Feels from 2014’s The Manipulator and Finger from 2010’s Melted.
With five instrumentalists on hand, Segall was free to roam the stage unhindered by a guitar or drum kit, fling his limbs and hair around, punch the sky, and just generally come into his own as a riveting and unique showman, something we always knew he was, even back in his days playing the little old Garrison.
carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis
