REVIEW: Ezra Furman @ the Sinclair 10/29
By Jack Beck
Rock is dead, and has been dead in some way since it was born; rock is saved, and has been saved in some way since before it was dead. Now rock is hip-hop, now rock is jazz, and funk, and folk, and country, and blues, and soul too; now rock is multi-millionaire octogenarians ranting racist diatribes against hip-hop to Rolling Stone; now it’s dead-eyed Soundcloud rappers crying for help to a hoard of moshing teenagers. Rock is trapped in the past, rock is only underground, you’ll never understand rock because you weren’t there. Rock is dead, they say. Long live rock: rock is Ezra Furman at the Sinclair Monday night in a sweat-stained floral dress, hands clutching his pearl necklace, rallying a chant of “Fuck! Nazis! Fuck! Nazis!” in the final moments of his show.
Rock is the moment in “Suck the Blood From My Wounds” when everyone in the band kicks out and it’s just Ezra screaming the song’s title while the saxophonist, Tim, wails the track’s main riff–the two of them alone, but still so loud you can feel it.
It’s the orange Ezra takes a bite out of then throws into the crowd, the one he was peeling for the entirety of “Peel My Orange Every Morning” while somehow still managing to play the song. It’s the cheeky smirk the bassist Jorgen and keyboardist Ben give each other during “Love You So Bad” right before diving into the self-aware ultra-cheese of the song’s ‘50s doo-wop backing vocals. It’s the way the saxophonist plays his instrument with an eyes-closed, lung-collapsing intensity, then carries that same level of dedication to his maracas when the band switch into their older, saxophone-free material.
And really, at its core, rock is just the pure passion Furman has. It’s the way he runs across the stage weaving in and out of his bandmates absolutely belting these songs; sometimes he’s writhing on the floor crying while still playing a guitar solo, other times he’s in the back of the stage flailing against the curtain without a microphone, but he’s still so loud we can hear him over everything else. There’s rock in the frenzied look of Furman’s eyes when he stares out the at the crowd, in the violent way his hand strikes his guitar as he jumps across the stage, even in the spit that flies out into the crowd as he screams.
But rock is also the pause between noise freakout “I Wanna Destroy Myself” and Prince-gone-post-punk feedback jam “Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill,” the pause where Furman stops his backing band and draws the crowd in, offering a prayer for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Rock is in the way Furman dedicates that next song to trans people, the way he brings out Planned Parenthood volunteers as part of his encore, the way he uses his music and his tirades in between tracks as a way of welcoming everyone in the crowd, anyone who has been victimized for their queerness or their religion on their gender or anything else that makes them an other, the way he celebrates rock as freedom, freedom from not just oppression and abuse but also from self-hatred. Because in these twenty tracks and two hours Furman has done more than play his music; Furman has created a moment, a night of soul cleansing and tears and celebration. It all seems real. It all seems like rock.
Long live rock. Fuck Nazis.