Nothing with Wrong and Culture Abuse at Lee’s Palace

Photos by Matt Forsythe

Is there a better way to shake out the mid-week cobwebs than annihilating them by wild blasts of heaviosity? Last night I found out as Philadelphia’s Nothing, Miami Beach’s Wrong and San Francisco’s Culture Abuse too to the stage at Lee’s Palace last night on the second night of their North American tour together. Indeed the cobwebs didn’t stand a chance.

Last year I caught both Nothing and Wrong again at Lee’s when they hit town to support the mighty Torche. While I still don’t have any of their recorded output, they impressed enough to get me out on a Tuesday night.

A lot of press really emphasizes the shoegaze element to Nothing, something I find misleading as any gazing at shoes was quickly corrected like a bungee cord snapping. Nothing is really light on the dreamy part of shoegaze but really immersed in the heavy wails and walls of guitar.

Touring behind their freshly released sophomore album, Tired Of Tomorrow, the four-piece took the stage to a timid vibe that filled about two-thirds of the room.

Opening with “Fever Queen” off the new album, the band delivered roughly an hour of obnoxiously loud guitars, feeding back through the set. Still as furious but tighter than I remember them the last time, Nothing are aloo thrilling to watch, specifically the right-side guitarist/vocalist who might have been overserved but was a frenzy of action including a dip on to the floor, guitar to hand only to throw it back on stage before he was helped back up.

The crowd was their usual rigid selves, quite possibly shocked at how heavy the band was. Either way, I left with ears ringing, difficulty in getting to sleep, but also contentment. I hope a weekend visit is in the near future.

The three bands on the bill have little in common other than heaviosity. Wrong brought intense Helmet-like crushing riffs and wild drums that barely let off the throttle, aside from the second last song of their half-hour set that sounded like a Helmet/Swervedriver marriage in my head. Their bassist last time was the focus of my attention as his bobble-head-like movements with the long mane was awesome to watch. There was some of that last night, but the listless crowd had no energy to feed off.

I missed the beginning of Culture Abuse’s set but caught their last five songs of punk rock fury that really should have got a wild party started. In what would be an omen for the evening, those on stage appeared to be having a better beer-swilling party and somehow that just didn’t translate. Different night, different crowd would have had different results. Or maybe those gathered were expecting a night of dream-pop to comfort their cobwebs?