Live at the Double Door, Chicago
Words by Kyle Smith//Illustration by Elliot Kurtz
Throughout Mew’s set, I was transfixed not by the massive video of kittens playing violin and dolls bleeding from their eyes, or frontman Jonas Bjerre’s gums, or the keyboardist who was absolutely a hologram of his Spinal Tap counterpart. What kept my visual interest, while blissing out, was guitarist Bo Madsen’s mustache. It overshadowed his half-mullet, his casual blazer, and his dynamic riffing: perhaps Mew is Ned Flanders fronting My Bloody Valentine?

This wasn’t no pencil-thin Lou Bega shit, or even Bob Dylan’s nappy scruff: Madsen’s ‘stache could serve as a foresty home to any of the bewildering animals that populate Bjerre’s lyrics. It is Dan Fogelberg thick, all the more strange because Madsen fits into the boyish-looking half of the band. Bassist Bastian Juel and drummer Silas Graae look like byproducts of Scandinavia’s notorious death metal scene, but each seems uncharacteristically friendly — the dimunitive Graae tucks in his shirt and shields his drumming with waist-length locks, while Juel stood in Bjerre’s shadow—literally, so that the video projected behind him would have one less silhouette obscuring it. And while Mew may be new-age shoegazers, Bjerre never took his eyes off the stars (or at least the Double Door’s disco ball).

But the mustache still captivates because it is confusing. Search as we may for a musical benchmark, there’s just no precedent for a band to sound like Mew (assaulting guitars, high-pitched vocals, xylophones cascading into a metallic sheen) and for its lead guitarist to sport a ridiculous mustache with no irony. Mew is not an ironic band: they are that rare type that looks for life-affirming sounds around every corner, with admittedly sheepish lyrics toward nameless (and named) females — Caroline, Emily — Dan Bejar’s got nothing on these blond Danes.

They opened their show like their last album, And the Glass-Handed Kites, with the headbanging two-song suite of “Circuitry of the Wolf” and “Chinaberry Tree,” sending the crowd’s Frengers (that’s slang for Mew superfans, from their gorgeous 2003 album of the same name — not quite friends, not quite strangers) into a mild tizzy that this could be an non-stop runthrough of Kites.

Tonight was not the night, alas, and “Chinaberry Tree” did not lead us into the amazing “Why Are You Looking Grave?” which features guest vocals from J. Mascis, of all people. Both songs embody the many rewards of their album: unlike Sigur Ros or even someone like the Arcade Fire, Mew doesn’t make you wait for their epic epiphanies. Check the album version of “Grave:” you’ll have chills twice by the second minute, and maybe you’ll cry at 2:40 when Bjerre’s voice cracks “All the terrible things that shook up our hearts too much.” Why wait for the payoff when you can have it now — and when it is so expertly delivered?

That lyric may also seem like a red flag, and it is: Mew, particularly the stuff from Frengers, alternates between perplexing fantasy and earnest emo. They played a number of fan faves from Frengers, including “Am I Wry? No,” the “Spider-Man 2”-featured “She Spider,” and the epic wash of “Comforting Sounds.” Never have I been angrier at a merch booth for not carrying imported albums: Mew, something of a national treasure in Denmark, just saw Kites released here this summer and Frengers last month. They are both exceptional albums.

Before one song, Madsen announced that the venue’s speaker system could only handle mono sound, and that they had never played such a show. Far from selling out Roskilde, now catering to Chicago hipsters and dizzy young sub-21 girls who snuck in, they were clearly amused at the prospect of their music coming through one channel. That’s all you need, really; when Madsen walked back out for the encore, he started clapping his hands over his head, stadium-style. Clap hands! The beat was to the standout “Special,” which became more synth-pop than the charming role it plays on the album’s magnificent centerpiece: the towering triptych of “Apocalypso,” “Special,” and “The Zookeeper’s Boy.”

“Apocalypso,” in particular, ended with the same chugging guitars that distinguish it from the rest of the album: a confident, joyous head-banging session, directed by Madsen, whose guitar is so forceful it renders Kevin Shields’ 100 guitars stupid. Ditto for “Zookeeper’s Boy” and its remarkable opening, which goes from dim, massive industrial buzz to hopeful, massive industrial buzz to Mercury Rev in 50 seconds.

The concept album, the heavy guitars, and the geeky/girly lyrics have bestowed the bogus indie buzzword of late, “prog-rock,” onto Mew (and the mustache doesn’t help). Forget that: The Crane Wife’s ten-minute, organ-driven fables echo Operation: Mindcrime better than anything here. Mew, instead, belongs to that pantheon of bands that matter to young people, that inspire them with confounding yet honest lyrics, back it up with tight, anthemic songwriting, and perform with panache that is equal parts Metallica and Raffi. It’s enough to justify the mustache.