Is Dr. Dog too cool to exist in three dimensions? Photos and text by .
concerts aren’t so much a trip back in time as a trip outside of time. They draw an audience that’s about as mismatched as you can hope for, with sack-dress and dreadlock-sporting hippie women bubbling with pre-Atlamont innocence mashed into a crowd smattered with Pitchfork-era cool kids, pop-punk loving youngsters there for the melodies and a few misplaced and confused looking professionals.
In a musical feat almost short of a miracle, the band’s set justified such an unorthodox mixing of the tribes at the on Saturday. The Philadelphia band’s inspirations stretch back to the late ’60s, with vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Beach Boys and Beatles blending into a mix of Creedence-like simplicity and that almost painfully hyper self-awareness of indie-era bands.
By rights, neither its crowd or its influences should have been able to get along. Both did.
As much a testament to the band’s ferocious enthusiasm as its musicianship, Dr. Dog breezed through an hour-plus set that was about ignoring anachronisms and embracing the moment. It worked. The Hi-Dive’s already cozy stage became nearly claustrophobic, with a pair of keyboards pinching in on the wings, but it didn’t stop the band members from bouncing around (and into each other) in foot-stomping glee.
The was designed to showcase the band’s retro-conscious songs from its latest, “Fate.” Singer/bassist Toby Leaman’s a born soul-shouter, and when the act unloaded and went into its more romping numbers, his faintly gravelly howl alluding more to Stax Records’ glory days than the free-love moments. Singer/guitarist Scott McMicken, who was usually pinned down between the neck of Leaman’s bass and a mostly superfluous keyboard stacked onto stage left, added more conventional vocals to the mix.
Dr. Dog wasn’t able to achieve the pristine harmonies that made its catalog favorites of pop fanatics on stage, but its energy more than made up for its lack of polish, which, really was the night’s rule of thumb: Energy and good times were the act’s champions against authenticity or artistic progress. The former won, but only by a small margin.
Reverb writer/photographer Matt Schild edits the Fort Collins-based webzine .
