Glowing under purple, red, yellow and orange lights, Man Man musically bashed the heads of a sardine-packed crowd this past Thursday night at Pearl Street. The Philadelphia five-piece managed to cram a “Top Hits” catalogue into a two-hour set, playing favorites from all four of their albums in roughly reverse chronological order.
As the opening acts Grandchildren and Whirl closed their sets, the crowd nearly doubled in excited anticipation for the headliners.
In the past it was common practice for Man Man to set up, go through a sound check and disappear. Ten minutes later all five members, clad in various white outfits and masked with face paint would manically herald the beginning of a frantic, non-stop set with grins and shouts. This time, however, the band was much more subdued and, as happens with many great acts, seems to be slowing down in favor of a more premeditated track.
Gone were the coordinated white outfits and the non-stop cacophonous typhoon. Instead, Man Man offered a more traditional set featuring brief interludes that overall reflected the bands fourth and most developed album to date: “Life Fantastic.” But make no mistake, this does not mean the performance was anything less than a frenzy.
As soon as frontman Honus Honus, et al. took to the stage, they immediately whipped the crowd into a frenzy with “Young Einstien on the Beach,” off of their second album “Six Demon Bag.” The song is essentially just a lot of cymbal bashing and the frantic repetition of the mantra: “gotta get it get got good I gotta get it got it!”
The crowd surged forward and continued to do so for the entire show. It was a human tsunami that, more than a few times, threatened to flood the stage. One guy even scaled a concrete pillar to the right of the stage. Ten minutes into the set security guards manned posts along the stage acting as levees. Those brave souls brash enough to play in the human surf could only cling to the half-dozen or so over six-foot tall human buoys or else resign themselves to the crowd’s relentless tide.
For the first hour, the band ran though all of the hits off of “Life Fantastic” and “Rabbit Habits,” along with a few numbers from “Six Demon Bag” and their debut album, “Man in the Blue Turban with a Face” thrown in for good measure.
Then after a quick break marked by a looped bass beat, Man Man retook the stage and began the second half of the show with “Feathers,” a slower favorite off of “Six Demon Bag” that was featured in an episode of Showtime’s “Weeds.” They followed up with “Black Mission Goggles” and “Engwish Budd,” a dynamic pair of songs that left the crowd breathless as they shouted along with the band, “GET THE F*** OUT OF MY HOUSE! MY HOUSE! MY HOUSE!” And while there were no feathered headresses this time around, the still vitally bizarre Honus Honus, clad in a sparkling faux-silk robe, serenaded the sweaty crowd and showered them with confetti.
Max Calloway can be reached at [email protected].
