Mac DeMarco at the Observatory, 4/6/13 by Jeff Sizemore

        
Jeff Sizemore recently saw Mac DeMarco at The Observatory in Santa Ana on April 16, 2013. His show review is below. 

        Mac DeMarco set the tone of the night when he handed over vocal duties on the chorus of “Rock and Roll Night Club” to his bassist, transforming the dive bar-karaoke of the recording into something that would have moshed comfortably with SST’s roster. The band ran through their set at a relatively punk rock pace, bashing out all the favorites until they arrived at “She’s Really All I Need,” which exploded into the live equivalent of flipping through radio stations. A little smooth jazz here, a bit of that late-90s rap-metal delusion there, and plenty of classic rawk slapped in between, all filtered through Mac’s trademark bizarro lens before finally winding its way back without warning. The crowd at the Constellation Room was in top form that night. The venue either consists of a sea of heads gently bobbing behind smartphone screens or, if you’re lucky, a kind of quasi-pagan ritual just short of demanding a human sacrifice. It was a lucky night, the room like one of those animations of gas particles, bodies bounding off of one another in divine chaos. The bassist’s determination to keep the set rolling (and his beer upright) in spite of the madness was a necessary foil to Mac, who was beaming at all the sweaty faces and encouraging them after each song with a “very sexy”. Everyone was raised to such a pitch that the usual trickle of kiss stealers, plainclothes clowns, and failed Olympic divers onto the stage became a flood that claimed the stage by the end of the set. Mac allowed the gathered faithful to lift him up, and they attempted to pass him to the few adherents left on the main floor. Unfortunately, crowd surfing inevitably ends when someone, for whatever reason, doesn’t think to look above them during a show and in the next moment finds themselves not only with a boot in their face, but a body they now have to keep from dropping onto some concrete. If you’re wondering why such an internet-savvy person as yourself didn’t hear about Mac DeMarco dying a week ago, let me clear everything up by affirming that he did not, in fact, die. Everyone seems to hit the ground just hard enough to have a purple badge of honor covering their knee but never enough to send them to the hospital (though nothing quite says “hardcore” like stitches). Noticing that the frontman had disappeared after taking a dive, the security team came to the decision that there might be too many people onstage, Mac’s bassist assisting them by offering the crowd his sarcastic thanks over the PA. Once everything was clear, Mac hopped back onto the mic and picked up their closer, 2’s “Together,” where they’d left off, everyone wailing along with the chorus. Mac DeMarco’s the rare musician that understands the difference between the record and the concert, and he exploits it in his impish fashion. And with both of his records released just last year, there's plenty bizarro goodness to come.

You can find Mac DeMarco on Captured Tracks. Also, be sure to check out opener Fletcher C. Johnson, whose folksy pop traces its lineage to Neil Young and Bob Dylan with a bit of Buddy Holly in the harmonies, but this ain’t cheap imitation. It’s modern. It’s classic. And you can find it on Burger Records.