Jesse and Mark

It feels a bit absurd to call a small band like These United States a “supergroup,” but that’s what it felt like on Saturday night.

These United States are currently four guys that come from three of the best Lexington-related bands. Jesse writes the These United States songs, Mark plays as Vandaveer, and Robbie and Justin are two-thirds of Scourge of the Sea (and 100% of Fanged Robot). So if you’re from Lexington, this is almost as much of a supergroup as the New Pornographers or Broken Social Scene. And even though they might not have a fraction of those bands’ fame, to judge solely on Saturday’s performance, they’ve already started playing with a level of energy that suggests that nobody bothered to tell them.

I’ve only had These United States’ new album Crimes for about a week, but I’ve already listened to it about a half dozen times through. I really feel that it’s a phenomenal record and their show at Al’s only drove that home more. Each song I loved on the record, I really loved at the show. The album-opening “West Won” in particular sounded fantastic; the song is perfectly structured to give Jesse room to really use his voice and Robbie a chance to use his drums as an instrument rather than something to just bash.

MP3: These United States – Honor Amongst Thieves

I do have to point out the only bad thing about These United States’ show at Al’s: they didn’t play my favorite song on the record. Without giving too much away, there’s a spot reserved on my year’s end list of best songs for “Honor Amongst Thieves.” But it didn’t find itself in the set list because they had to play a quick show (there were two bands on after them apparently?). I wasn’t alone in my unfounded grumpiness, though; there was a table of girls who asked Jesse after the show why they left it out. Oh well, hopefully they learned their lesson: when you write a fantastically great song, keep it in the set list.

But yes, the show was great. The band was goofy, but great. To close, they played “When You’re Traveling At the Speed of Light,” which is one of the best songs on Crimes and its closer as well. The song ends with a capella repeats of the closing phrase “If the thing that drives you onward is your heart, you must not let that engine die.”

Jesse, Mark and Justin took to the one microphone to repeat the closing line, but then found it hilarious to take the mic over to the drum and dangle it above Robbie’s head. That didn’t so much inspire more singing from him, but rather got them all laughing too hard to continue. Strangely, that lead to one of the best moments of the show. Everyone in the bar that either already had their copy of Crimes or was just fast on picking up lyrics started loudly singing the last line for them.

More photos after the break