Midway into “Ontario,” Anna Burch of Frontier Ruckus, bathed in a surreal, momentary turquoise, wailed another chorus into the mic, swapping playful glances with vocalist Matthew Milia. Behind them, hidden in a murky shadow, banjoist David Jones went to town.
The sardine-tight audience took another step forward, heads bobbing in half-ecstasy, half-anguish.
“I’m blurring into sun-burnt and heartbroken worrying,” the band sang, “about how the day took such a long time to die / when it was reeking of women I once had on my side.”
The music, joyful and a little angsty with a healthy portion of quirk, set the scene last week in the back room at BAR on Crown Street. The free concert, part of BAR’s Wednesday night concerts, packed in a crowd of over 150 despite the snow-lined streets and chilly temperatures.
Lucy Gellman Photo
Frontier Ruckus is what happens when Amanda Palmer, Tweedy, The Weakerthans circa 2008, a homesick Elvis, and She and Him have a friendly sing-along while stripping in Marcus Mumford’s closet.
Milia, whose lyrics are equal parts existential crisis, road trip banter, and dandy charm, has perfected a twangy, sour whine that channels both Monsters of Folk and the dingy-but-bright cookie-cutter strip malls that defined his upbringing in the suburbs of Detroit. Frontier Ruckus’s folksy melodies and lyrics exalt the realities of the suburban life: strip malls, bad public transit, wide-mouthed highways that can take you just about anywhere, and a delirious love for the sprawling and artificial.
Unrestrained and effusive — but refreshingly unwilling to be the band’s manic pixie dream girl — Burch fed off of Milia’s energy Wednesday night, meshing with the band and the audience so well that members left the show a little bit in love with everything around them. Her voice, a jewel box of a thing that pulls from Deb Talan, Joanna Newsom, and Emmylou Harris, is just part of what made the group so happily transcend hipster cliché for something else entirely. Burch and Milia were electric as they led the group in song and affably awkward when making banter with the audience. Zachary Nichols tickled the senses with his trumpet skill and thrilled them with his singing saw.
Jones made just about every woman (and man) in the room want to learn how to seduce with a banjo in hand.
On the heels of their new LP Everything You Know is Wrong, Arcay played several new songs and some Elm City favorites, warming the audience up with a set full of references to 1970s rock, setting long, jammy guitar solos to insistent syncopation. The group’s gem is drummer John McGrath, whose solo morphed from a methodical tribute to Led Zeppelin to something very nearly spiritual.
Hard to beat? Maybe, but The Proud Flesh — a glorious indie-rock mashup of Steve Earle, Zach Condon, and a polka master — kept the momentum going. Vocalist and guitarist Alex Burnett was indefatigable, so taken by the group’s rhapsodic rhythms that his shoulder-length hair never stayed in the same place as he played. Bassist Mike Skaggs was exuberant and soulful. And guitarist, vocalist, and trumpet player Patrick Dalton, who Burnett met while working in a burrito shop, was mesmerizing as he switched between instruments and knife-sharp lyrics under BAR’s deep blue light.
Which is to say, if you are looking for some ruckus and ruffled feathers, now you know where to find it.
