Girls + Dominant Legs - Doug Fir (Portland, OR; Nov. 18, 2009)

Let’s pretend you are sitting at your friend’s house. Everyone is happy and having a good time and then out of nowhere, your friend starts to read from their diary. And what you hear is intense, and personal, and messy, and you feel torn between your desire to stop them and an undeniable curiosity that is asking you to go deeper. That is what seeing Girls live feels like. Like a voyeuristic peek into one man’s seeping heart, and in the end, you’re not sure if your presence has been cathartic or you just spent an hour taking advantage of the emotionally fragile.

But before Girls came on, the Doug Fir played host to another San Francisco group called Dominant Legs. If you read the literature on the group, it’s the brainchild of one Ryan William Lynch, but in its live vein, it is very much a duo consisting of Lynch and keyboardist/background vocalist Hannah Hunt.

They started off clean and jangly, feeling like a bright slice of Californicana (yes I just did that to the English language), with him on guitar, her with a soaring synth line and a drum machine pounding out the backbeat. Singing in unison, the two long-haired performers gave us a song about being young at love and life. Instantly the crowd got a taste of the sound that was to come all evening: a pastiche of California indie pop that recalled the beach, its waves, and a touch of that 60’s psychedelia that San Francisco made its name on.

The crowd gave mild applause to what was going on up on stage, and the ‘Legs seemed a little ambivalent. The crowd didn’t perk up much more when Girls came out to play back-up on the ‘Legs’ last number, which made me wonder if anyone in this crowd actually knew what Girls looked like. I’m going to go with they didn’t. But I won’t fault anybody because I had to think about it for a second too.

When Christopher Owens and the rest of Girls came out for the top spot, they went right into “Laura” only to be have to stop it shortly thereafter because of technical difficulties. After the sound guy figured out how to get the bass player into the mix, the concert resumed. Again it was with “Laura,” a song about longing for a former lover and the thorn-like emotions that go with it. And when Owens starts singing, you immediately start to wonder if you’ve stumbled in on Elvis Costello in disguise; their voices are that similar.

Unlike Costello, Owens sounds like the ship might go down. Not quite broken, but on his way there. His songs and his voice invoke a deep sadness that can only come from someone who has been truly hurt by life. When he sings about being heartbroken, you feel that you are actually in the presence of someone who’s still coming back and doesn’t have the energy for that happy face out in public. It all cuts pretty close to the bone, and I found myself wishing that he finds some success so maybe it all wouldn’t hurt so bad anymore.

But out of the sadness of the opening few numbers came hope, as every once in awhile Owens would check in with a song like “Summertime” that transported you back into those months where all you want to do is be outside and go looking for a good time with your friends. It was in moments like these where you believed that maybe Owens wasn’t a pity case and he could find pleasure amidst his pain. 

The music that backed all of this was a mix of clean guitar strokes and reverb-coated garage fuzz. It feels like it’s from a different time, but somehow manages to remain relevant (aside from it just sounding good) through the words, which are timeless expressions of whatever emotion they are trying to convey. At its core, the concert was about building a mood and while that mood usually worked in a reserved capacity, it always had a certain intensity to it that held your attention.

And even though I know that I’m talking them up, there is something you should know . . . they sound pretty much just like the album. Aside from some textural layers that Ryan William Lynch (he played lead guitar for Girls after his Dominant Legs set) added and the extended endings on a few of the songs, it was the record, minus a little bit of punch in that room. Which might be a good or bad thing to you, since the record is fantastic and will probably score very high on a lot of year-end lists (including my own). That said, I know that when I go to a show I want to see something that I can’t hear in my headphones at home, and I’m not sure if you get that here. You do get a few new numbers, including “Heartbreaker,” which are good, but you don’t get that sense of live exploration that some people might want. So be advised.

The high points came in the form of two songs that are probably the best entrance points into the world of Girls . . . ”Lust for Life” and “Hellhole Ratrace.” The first was upbeat and made me wish that the Doug Fir could roll back its roof and reveal the sky. It’s airy and light and smile-inducing and that’s exactly what it conjured up in the room when they brought it out to close the set. The crowd that never cheered too wildly (can we all agree that hipsters hate yelling?) for the entire show finally found their enthusiasm and I was glad to see it. “Hellhole Ratrace,” on the other hand, is a long, drawn-out number in which Owens takes a look at a bad situation and decides he wants to live a fulfilling life instead of the one he’s got. And in the live setting, just like on the record, the music steadily gets louder and more intense until it takes over all the molecules in the air. Owens kept repeating about how he doesn’t want to cry his whole life through, he wants to do some laughing too, until you start to root for him. You understand where he’s coming from and you agree with his sentiments. It’s a great song and a perfect example of why everyone is buzzing about this band. And while it doesn’t happen too often, sometimes everybody gets it right.

We ended on an Owens-only encore of about four songs including a track about the cold weather and one with the lyric “we’re in love and it’s nobody’s business.” It was interesting to see Owens removed from his own songs and the thematic complications inherent in them. Suddenly you saw a guy goofing around and finding some happiness within the music and for a second, you got the feeling that one day, he’s going to pull through. Here’s to hope.

DOWNLOAD: GIRLS - Heartbreaker (Live on MPR) (MP3) or Follow us for more GIRLS MP3s (Twitter)

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