David Thomas Hates His Drummer

That's not fair. Maybe he hates all drummers, whether they're his or not. He just doesn't get the opportunity to turn around during a show and slap every drummer's cymbals and berate them for being stupid and completely inadequate.

Obviously, that is (part of) what happened at Pere Ubu's show at Sonar on Easter Sunday. I'm sure it already appears as such, and will probably continue to, but I am by no means complaining. Besides the two Acoustic Vaudevilles I went to, this may have been my favorite concert. And not just because Dave Thomas had what I can only imagine is a fairly tame meltdown on stage. Because when they were playing, and that wasn't as often as I suppose it should have been, they were possibly the best band I've ever seen. And I've seen Air Supply.

Since I bought the new album, Why I Hate Women, directly from the band after the show, the new songs were lost on me for the most part. Only "Caroleen" stands out, and that because it sounded like a Rocket From The Tombs song I'd somehow missed. The rest of it was full of relatively later Pere Ubu stuff, "Electricity" and "Folly Of Youth" from Ray Gun Suitcase, "Phone Home Jonah" from St. Arkansas, which was a welcome surprise. When they started off with a ridiculously explosive "Final Solution" I suspected I was in for what most everyone else was there to see, a Terminal Tower retrospective. Or worse, a Rocket From The Tombs show.

But apparently, that was mostly out of Mr. Thomas' system thanks to the recent tour. He introduced the one, I would imagine, obligatory inclusion from that period, "Sonic Reducer" with a high-pitched Sting impersonation wherein said Sting told him he should write more socially responsible fare. Despite this light-hearted lead in, after one verse, the drummer apparently had made his final tolerable mistake of the night and Dave stopped the song. He mumbled something about missing the verse, glared at the drummer (who looked younger than The Tenement Year), and flipped through his notebook to find the next song.

For all I know, the drummer was screwing up, but I get the impression this sort of thing happens a lot and that while he may not have been perfect, he was better than fine. The inciting incident, really, is traceable to a fan yelling out, "Turn your synthesizer off!" after one of the early songs. He had a point, this fan, even though there was clearly no synthesizer on stage. The weird box that the Pale Boy that isn't Keith Moline was using was definitely throwing out a wall of fuzzy noise the whole time. Clearly this "fan" hadn't been keeping up with Pere Ubu though, as I'd imagine not too many in attendance have been, because that's pretty much standard. I was sort of impressed they could recreate it, actually. But I can certainly see where it might get annoying. Dave Thomas, nor the Pale Boy that isn't Keith Moline had any such understanding however. Dave Thomas yelled back, made fun of the guy, and seemed to let it go for the moment, though throughout the rest of the show, it was clear it was eating at him. It still might be. Two songs later he proclaimed, "We're officially doing this show for the money now" and later still, "I only have to fill two more minutes." Which were, as far as I could tell, completely unprompted. As was the end of the show, wherein he just decided he'd had enough and left.

And that would have been so much more satisfying had they all not come right back out for a short encore. Not that I didn't appreciate the few extra songs, but it seemed unlike him to abandon his principles. Fleeting principles, sure, but still.

So afterwards, I waited around like an idiot for way too long, making sure I wasn't missing a table that was selling their stuff before bothering them. By the time I felt like I had no other options, the stage was almost cleaned up and David Thomas was sitting in the folding chair he'd brought on stage with him, just behind the curtain offstage, head in his hands, probably still trying to figure out why that guy said that thing. So I asked the Pale Boy that isn't Keith Moline if they had any copies of the new album with them and he said sure and went to get one. But David was standing by then. I'd awoken him from his ponderous morass. He asked what I wanted in his best I-don't-actually-care voice. I told him Why I Hate Women. What I should have said was "What do you have? Because I know the rerelease of The Tenement Year is going to be hard to find. But I didn't. Because I'm dumb. "Do you have ten dollars?" he asks as if this is a problem, people asking for things they can't pay for. I totally had the ten dollars and I totally gave it to him. "Thank you very much" came out. And I meant it. But I don't know why I said it that way. "Thank you very much," he says back. I think he was making fun of me. Which maybe saved his night. So I was happy to take it.