Year Long Disaster - Chicago, IL

Year Long Disaster erupted onstage last Tuesday at the Double Door with a howling, heavy-hitting, true 70s rock flare as lead singer Daniel Davies strutted with a halo of light backlit to wreathe his mop of curls.  As the bass line thumped and the trio began to rock, Richie Mullins took a low lunged bass stance with pouts and thrusts that speak of Rock and Roll showmanship.  Daniel Davies and his black velvet jacket, skinny jeans and the bow legged wobble brings to mind every video recording I have ever seen of the wraithlike Robert Plant and only furthered my interest in a band that up until that night I had only read press releases about.  Did I mention I love a lead singer that is also the lead guitar that can actually play?  The combination, along with the aforementioned Plant-ness, encompasses a reeling amount of sexuality, potency and showmanship that bands with sets and special effects mask.  Year Long Disaster needs none of these things and still holds the audience’s attention from the first song to the last.

 Where most bands pause in venues as small and sparsely filled as the Double Door on this particular Tuesday night for some sort of validation between songs, Year Long Disaster doesn’t wait for applause to move on to their next song.  They need no justification; they’re set is tight and they like it that way.  The extent of their intensity in a quarter-filled house is phenomenal as Daniel struts out and motions for the crowd.  Responding to his unspoken order, they all lean forward for his guitar solo on “Leda Atomica.” Daniel Davies’ mannerisms and likability while he’s playing make me wish for a fourth band member, despite my admiration for the trio.

 There are no calculated or mechanical gestures for Year Long Disaster, every movement is wildly maniacal and free.  There goes the mic stand as he swaggers towards the crowd purposeful, confident and ridiculously tribalistic.  Daniel is never lost in the flail.  Even on the slow-paced songs, the lead singer takes on the Edwardian madness that Robert Plant embodied (despite the lack of love beads for Davies) with the howl and shrill ethereal bluesy whine as the bass and drums thrum in the background.

It looks like Year Long Disaster is set to explode.  The Foo Fighters have tapped them to open for them while on tour this summer and are simultaneously geniuses and morons for doing so.  Thank God they’re already huge.