Stephen Mejias

This dude, Patrick Duffy, does a good job of detailing last night’s Fucked Up show at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in charming Fort Greene. On a tree-lined, brownstoned block, in an old and ornate shrine, Fucked Up, joined by New Jersey’s Vivian Girls on backing vocals and Andrew WK on synths, made a scene. I kept a safe distance from the anarchy, up in the urine-scented balcony, with the other parents.

(Note: I’m not really a father, readers; I’m just making a joke.)

It was a memorable performance, the band playing last year’s entire outstanding album, The Chemistry of Common Life, the audience morphing into a ravenous and stormy sea. Lead singer, Damian Abraham, stripped down to his boxers, smashed cans of Zywiec into his scarred forehead, grabbed audience members by their red ears and drew them into his face for full-mouth embrace after full-mouth embrace: “Swine flu, be damned!”

As if bound to some undeniable conveyor belt, girls and boys made their ways onto the stage to smack Abraham’s enormous belly before leaping off into the red lights, either to land upon a bony wave of so many wild limbs or smack soundly onto the old, wooden, beer-covered floor. There’s no rhyme to the temper of the mosh pit. Abraham smiled, the band rocked, the old temple groaned.

The Chemistry of Common Life is one of the most powerful and beautiful albums I’ve ever heard. Witnessing it performed live from beginning to end, fueled by such energy and enthusiasm and other things, was a gift I won’t forget; and, while listening to the LP at home can never be the same (thank god), it will serve as a reasonable gesture to a remarkable evening.