Live: Blacklist @ Vanishing Point

When: 10/24 (or actually, the wee hours of 10/25)
Where: Vanishing Point

Sorry, folks, it's taken me a while to get this one posted. But after catching the Pains last Friday, I skedaddled over to Bushwick to catch Blacklist at the new DIY venue Vanishing Point.

In the past, Blacklist's music had reminded me of everything that was good about the music of the 1980's. I associate them with dark, goth-tinged new wave, but from a definitively 2008 perspective.

Vanishing Point, however, is an old brick warehouse, and while the space is wide and deep enough to give it decent acoustics, there's still quite a bit of noise. As a result, the band's sound lost its new wave polish and the raw rock underneath shone through. The downside was that much of the detail of the music was lost in the din. It was hard to distinguish one guitar from another or the bass from either one. The upside was that I heard a whole new side to these musicians, something more raw and more powerful than I've heard in the past.

Blacklist is always fun to watch live, but especially with a good smoke machine going, as at this show. The members fan out on stage and while they don't move much, they are obviously engaged. It's a rare band that really plays for its audience, but Blacklist does - they play with the effortless tightness of professionals who are free to focus their attention on perfecting their music for the crowd's ears. Blacklist seems not only to love their music, but also to love playing it for the throng of goths, many their friends, that crowd every show. This is a band that cares about you, and that makes them great every time.

The band plays again on Nov. 21 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Don't miss it!