Mac DeMarco • Concert Review & Analysis
Shaky Knees Festival
Atlanta, GA – May 10, 2015
By Craig Peacock
This past weekend Atlanta, GA’s Central Park found itself engulfed by excessive ink, man-buns, and preconceived notions. After three years, Shaky Knees has proven to be one of the hippest festival in the Southeast with a line up that undoubtedly evoked nocturnal emissions across the NESCAC and other bastions of hip, liberal twenty-somethings. All jokes aside, Shaky Knees was a success. I was particularly excited about Mac DeMarco, who I had been dying to see.
I was filled with excitement as I approached the Ponce De Leon stage with “Salad Days” echoing throughout the Atlanta Civic Center parking lot. Like most fans of Mac Demarco, I’ve scoured Youtube for any and all live performances, interviews, and strange videos he has to offer (“Backer” being my favorite). My time between then and now has been saturated with sounds from “Rock ’N Roll Night Club”, “2”, and “Salad Days.” Though Mac’s records are extremely pleasurable, I’ve found myself feeling the same way Count Basie must have felt when he wrote “One O’Clock Jump” (editors note: you should dig into this reference).
However, my excitement was soon abated by the underwhelming sound coming through the monitors: “Something’s missing,” I thought. Apparently, I was not alone. DeMarco asked the crowd, “How does it sound out there? Should I turn my guitar up?” The crowd cheered “Yes!” and the sound engineer cranked up Mac’s guitar. While most bands would have been irked by a sound issue, Mac and his bandmates took it with a smile and used it as another opportunity to interact with the crowd. After the necessary adjustments, the band performed an excellent set with songs from each of their three albums filled with more stage banter and antics.
“Freaking out the Neighborhood” was spot on. The main riff is infectious and the chord progression is just fantastic. Mac has an underrated chord vocabulary. It’s subtle, but most of his songs feature interesting changes. “Ode to Viceroy” is one of these tunes, sounding like it could have been written by Stephen Malkmus. “Baby’s Wearing Blue Jeans” was the highlight of the show for me. I think this song embodies everything great about DeMarco and his style. Its a tongue-in-cheek rock ‘n’ roll ditty with nice falsetto harmonies and strong guitar work. The show closed with a beautiful “Still Together.”
Almost one year ago to the date, I was cruising down I-65 South streaming a broadcast from Middelbury College’s WRMC 91.1 FM. The host of “Jerry Pandering” proclaimed that the next song was from an artist that was preserving the landscape of Rock ’N Roll. The song was “Salad Days” by Mac DeMarco and it couldn’t have been more timely for a couple of college students that just finished their senior year.
Mac’s nonchalant or “slacker” demeanor certainly is refreshing. The banter in between songs is unlike any performer I’ve ever seen. Especially when you take into account that the next day on the very same stage, Neutral Milk Hotel asked the crowd to refrain from taking photographs. I guess not all indie bands are created equal.
I understand that Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum is a private individual with quirks of his own and prefers to perform his music in a particular way without the interference of technology. Other artists, most notably Bob Dylan, have also taken stances on the ways fans are allowed to interact with the performance. However, I think that DeMarco’s demeanor and relaxed attitude are a breath of fresh in this ballooning sea of indie rock bands constantly taking themselves too seriously. At a DeMarco show, the moment and the art are all that matter. It’s not forced upon you. It’s easy. It’s so easy that you can’t help but kick back and allow his ditties and antics to entertain you– even making you laugh out loud. When it comes to DeMarco’s live performance, there is no wall between the artist and the fans. The interaction is the art. It’s almost like you are at a neighborhood barbecue and DeMarco and his band are just a group of local jammers having a good time.
This could not be more evident from his onstage antics (what’s documented in “Pepperoni Playboy.”)
Sure, his albums are fantastic and stand by themselves as works of art. But live, it all comes together. The songs, the banter, the broken strings, the off-white covers. It’s all there. And you are not only encouraged to listen, but also compelled to participate.
At the end of the set, Mac dove off stage into the arms of a jubilant crowd, something that has become “textbook Mac.”As he landed, it seemed the inevitable has already begun to catch up to him. Though he tried his best to disguise his wincing with a smile, it was plain to see that his stage diving days will soon come to an end. How long he can keep playing this exaggerated caricature is unclear. But what is certain is that Mac is going to keep making music for as long as he can. And for that, we can be truly grateful.