Last Friday, L.A. noise rockers Qui, comprised of guitarist Matt Cronk, drummer Paul Christensen and former Jesus Lizard/Scratch Acid singer David Yow, performed at Chicago’s Empty Bottle to a rabid audience. The band played every song from Love’s Miracle, its debut for Ipecac Recordings, restoring some grit and disquiet to songs from a rather antiseptic recording.
Yow and Cronk made fearsome front for the group, evidenced on “Gash,” during which Yow seemed to actually crawl on top of the audience. In short, Yow was as intense as ever, and Cronk’s dangerous guitar was a perfect compliment. The ever humble Yow introduced “Apartment” as “the best song we do” despite relinquishing vocal duties to Christensen, whose vocal quietudes contrasted the song’s bone-crushing time trickiness.
It was perhaps unreasonable to expect Yow to repeat the priceless penguin joke heard on the album version of “Freeze.” Instead the crowd was treated to a colorful depiction of the difference between jam and jelly (here’s a hint — one of them can be used as a verb) and an exclamation of “finagle a bagel!” befitting Simpsons professor/scientist John Frink. It would have been the perfect ending to a near-perfect show, but the encore blew away all else.
Cronk and Christensen returned to perform Pink Floyd’s “Echoes,” turning out a pleasant enough rendition. The surprise came when Yow returned with a bass in hand, with which he mimicked the two-note riff, locking in with Christensen for a thunderous groove. This opened up room for Cronk to turn out some gloriously wrecked arpeggios similar to those of Duane Denison, former guitarist of the Jesus Lizard and currently of Tomahawk.
Qui are perhaps too often compared to Yow’s former band, but this was the first time such comparison was merited. Unforgettable.
– Mike McGovern
Qui: www.myspace.com/qui
Ipecac Recordings: www.ipecac.com