The almost-invisible Goldfish rally around the projection screen. Young People fail to inspire. Fun with Messrs. Hemphill and Gross. Big dayglo Angus.

A friend of mine from New York recently told me that having a Chicago zip code is "so unhip" -- so where the hell does that leave Salt Lake City? Well, the Liars deemed this place worthy of a visit while touring behind the recently-released They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, described by various critics as "unlistenable", "too scary to handle" -- the same critics who once labeled the band "blistering hot". Umm, does anyone remember the definition of "art-rock"? Have any of you geniuses, the ones who cringe at the noisiness of these songs, ever actually heard a Sonic Youth or a My Bloody Valentine album? I digress.

The first act to take the stage on this particular evening was Goldfish, featuring veteran indie-rocker K. (formerly known as Karla Schickele of Beekeeper and Ida) and her brother Mathew in a guitar versus guitar fashion, with K. on vocals and both members on various gadgets. The performance was backlit by a screen showing wallpaper-style video of factories, trees, buildings and other strangely hypnotic inanimate objects; the duo positioned themselves on either side, making the visuals as important as themselves. Though they operate with a minimal ensemble, the outfit generates a full sound using effects, bows, slides and Schickele's ethereal vocals. Though I've read really bad reviews of their discs, the performance was reminiscent of some of the best shoegazer bands of years gone by, mixed with Dead Can Dance style grace and elegance. Perhaps the road has been kind to these songs.

Next up was The Young People, another mellow contrast to the headlining act. The members of this multi-instrumentalist trio made the rounds, alternating between bass, guitars and drums, with Katie Eastburn handling vocals. The first song, "Hot Horse", set the tone for the entire set: lackluster. Honestly, the majority of the music sounded as if someone had stripped away roughly half of Low's talent and set the group on tour with only a few practice sessions under their belts. A friend commented that Eastburn must have learned her percussion skills "on the reservation". The vocals were pleasant and original...when Cat Power performed them. The mix started out uneven and never got better -- not really the band's fault, I suppose. The guitar-work, by both Jarrett Silberman and Jeff Rosenburg, was interestingly minimal, with bursts of intriguing color, but not enough to save these meandering songs. The band pulled together a bit by the end of the set ("The Lord" and "The Chain" were particularly smooth), but overall, The Young People didn't inspire a trip to their side of the merch booth. Despite my recent desire to collect all vinyl, I still declined.

After an unassuming introduction, Liars sauntered on stage and launched into the detuned guitar/tribal stomp of "Hold Hands and It Will Happen Anyway". This is one of most "accessible" tracks on the new album, and a good choice to foreshadow the mayhem in store during the hour-long set. "Guitarist" Aaron Hemphill, armed with an amp, a microphone in his pocket, a Roland SP-808 and a lot of feedback, pounded and squeezed the life out of his guitar; Angus Andrew, in a green suit coat, with a Tigger tail hanging off his backside, lurched and marched to the beat, backed Hemphill with a five-note guitar melody. At the song's end, drummer Julian Gross trailed off while Andrew chanted "choke, choke / thirst, thirst / cry, cry / die, die", wrapping his mic cord around the drummer's neck.

By the end of the first song, one thing was certain: this wasn't the same band from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tours a few years ago. The mere sight of Gross, decked out in a silver-sparkle miniskirt, sheer camisole, pink arm warmers (think leg-warmers, but...for your arms), dangly earrings and a German porn actor mustache, was a good indication of what the audience could expect: anything goes. Clearly, the old Liars -- the slightly-artsy-but-grounded-in-solid-funk-rock-basslines-and-tricky-disco-rhythms Liars, the ones who wrote They Threw Us in a Trench and Put a Monument on Top, hadn't lived here for a long time. Sure, Andrew's towering stage presence still commands attention, and Hemphill hasn't outgrown his penchant for back-to-the-audience performances, but They Were Wrong's choreography demanded a bit more from the band and the audience, and we both tried to keep up. Swarming soundscapes and bell-tone beats overtook the house speakers for "Bro(c)ken Witch", as Hemphill manned his groove box and guitar at once. Gross faithfully recreated the album version's odd-metered ostinato, while Andrew adopted his best Jim Morrison vocal, sexily chanting, "I am the boy / she is the girl / I no longer want to be a man / I want to be a horse." Hemphill put down his guitar and switched to a percussion kit (floor-tom/snare) to help drive the polyrhythmic texture of an extended version of "If You're a Wizard Then Why Do You Wear Glasses?" Both he and Gross took the original to more animated territory, weaving an incredibly tight rhythm, Gross triggering keyboard stabs via a MIDI controller strapped to his bass drum. The gloriously skewed single "They Were Wrong So We Drowned" (download this video if you haven't already) pushed the kitsch meter into the red as Andrew and Hemphill marched in place, eagerly grinning at the fact that people were actually cheering them on.

The evening's highlight was "We Fenced Other Houses With the Bones of Our Own". The eerie groove laid down by Gross's performance, augmented by Hemphill's two-note bass-line and further perpetuated by Andrew's monotone plea of "take your cauldron and get down", took the track into Skinny Puppy territory. The singer stopped midway through the song, staring into the crowd before his first refrain of "Fly, fly the Devil's in your eye, shoot, shoot." Despite my lack of faith that the audience was getting it, they all shouted and yelled along with him the second time, and Andrew's eyes lit up. He continued, inspired, and shrieked the words again and again.

At the end of the set, the band announced, "That's the end of our set. We've got to go backstage now." Both Gross and Andrew hid behind Hemphill's amplifier for about thirty seconds, then jumped up and cheered, feigning renewed energy. This demonstrated once again that despite the new material's heavy subject matter, the band haven't lost their sense of humor -- nor have they completely sunk into a world of what a guy behind me referred to as "gothy shit". Andrew even queried the crowd, pausing as if he might want to ask us to give up our first-born: "I want to clarify something. Do you believe in dinosaurs?" (Note: though many, even in this crowd, didn't get it, this question referred to the predominant religion's opinion on the age of the earth. Despite the fossilized evidence, my grandmother doesn't believe that dinosaurs existed. Please don't ask me anything else.)

Though this show was a different animal than the last Liars gig I attended, it once again left me astonished and impressed. And as before, it made me sad that I only have a frozen moments in time (CDs, photos) to remember the night.

Article and photos by Dave Madden