Recap Shellac at Club Garibaldi

After the ferocious opening salvo of Shellac’s sold-out Club Garibaldi show Friday night—with “Ghosts” going into “Steady As She Goes” going into “Copper” going into “My Black Ass”—Bob Weston stopped the show to make an important announcement: “Weird Al reported yesterday that he suffered a fart attack.”

From there it was apparent that the standard Shellac M.O. was in full swing—relentlessly abrasive music with an underlying sense of humor that borders on downright goofiness, from the slow-motion break in “Ghosts” (complete with slo-mo stick twirl) to the extended, McKenzie Brothers-style intro to “Canada.” (“Hey Bob, what’s today’s show about, eh?” “Oh yeah, I think it’s gonna be about how Wisconsin is basically the Canada of Illinois, eh?”) And Chicago’s primary noise-rock export delivered the gut-busting goods, both musically and comedically. Other highlights included Steve Albini’s piss-taking response to an audience member’s inquiry about why the set list was so different from the one in Seattle two weeks ago—“That’s a veiled brag. ‘Oooh, I was at the Seattle show!’”—and the band’s delighted reaction to a barrage of panties and briefs hurled on stage. (“Awesome! This is officially my high point as a member of Shellac,” Weston declared.) 

But the show wasn’t all silly hijinks. The banter was ultimately secondary to Shellac’s punishing set, which sampled evenly from the band’s four albums and as well as touching on some great new material. The band was in vicious form on barnburners like “Squirrel Song,” “Killers,” and “Be Prepared,” running songs together seamlessly despite the absence of a pre-planned set list. The closing double-shot of “The End of Radio”—which worked in a Bob Uecker reference for the hometown crowd— and “Crow” sent the audience home happy.

Opening the night’s festivities were excellent sets by Italy’s Three Second Kiss and Chicago’s Bear Claw, both of whom share Shellac’s passion for deliberately plotted rhythms and caustic noise. Both trios also emulated the traditional Shellac setup of placing the drummer front and center in between the guitarists, with good reason: Three Second Kiss’ Sacha Tilotta stole the show with a display of dizzying, ambidextrous drum work that inspired nothing short of awed disbelief.