Under normal circumstances, festivalgoers who caught Mohawk’s Wednesday night House of Vans showcase would dish about the entire lineup over steak and Gouda tacos the next morning.
Out-of-towners would gush at blissful, British, neo-psych outfit Temples’ stateside ascent. Sophomore Kappa Sig pledges would boast about losing their snapbacks when Miami motor mouth Denzel Curry leapt into the crowd and summoned a “cyclone pit.” Grizzled locals would take solace in the Black Angels’ dependable, if unremarkable, psych-rock storm.
When a venue announces At the Drive-In as its special guest hours before showtime, however, circumstances are anything but normal.
The crisp night air was palpably tense inside the Red River club by the time the El Paso quintet took the stage at 10:15pm. Security yanked a flailing patron down the steps and blocked the stairwells as the room hit capacity. This better be worth it, the audience bristled.
It was.
On their third album, 2000’s Relationship of Command, ATDI cut a post-hardcore touchstone so economically brilliant it triggered their impending breakup. A 2012 reunion tour kicked off at Austin’s Red 7 (now Barracuda) and a couple blasé singles from a forthcoming album have taken the edge off, but to paraphrase former Guns N’ Roses axe man Izzy Stradlin: It’s been 17 years that are gone forever and we’ll never have again.
The group shouldered none of that emotional burden last night, storming the stage with the powerhouse left/right combo “Arcarsenal” and “Pattern Against User” as fans roared with delight. Frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala leapt from the bass drum, manhandled his microphone stand, and exhorted the audience to bellow lyrics back to him. He even allowed slam dancing this time around.
“Did anybody take so much acid that you think you’re in Russia right now?” asked the 42-year-old frontman, not as svelte as in his youth but no less passionate.
Outside, fans scaled the Mohawk’s back wall, dodging flashlights from frazzled security just to sneak a peek at the quintet before they grace Stubb’s in June. My girlfriend, hardly a Drive-In devotee, watched the rogue climbers in disbelief, then turned to me to ask a question that didn’t need finishing.
“Is this band really–?”
“Yes.”
At the Drive-In set list, Mohawk, 3.15.17
“Arcarsenal” “Pattern Against User” “Sleepwalk Capsules” “Governed by Contagions” “Invalid Litter Dept.” “Enfilade” “Cosmonaut” “Quarantined” “One Armed Scissor”This article appears in March 10 • 2017.