Concert Review
The Modest Mouse that roared with punk polish and maturity

By Tina Potterf
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The unpredictability of a Modest Mouse show is the stuff of legends. What's usually a given is that the emo-rock band will play loud and fast. Frontman Isaac Brock will rage and wax poetic by turns, delivering songs both convoluted and refreshingly sparse.

Concert review Modest Mouse and guests, Paramount Theatre, Seattle, Sunday night.

Add polished (in a hip, noisy, punk way) and proficient to the list of redeeming qualities the Northwest band possesses, as Brock and company whipped a near-capacity crowd into a frenzy Sunday night at the Paramount Theatre. The band was tight, its rough patches of the past smoothed out, and its sound mature, without being dated. Seattle cellist Brent Arnold and his band the Spheres, and the maniacal spoken-word-meets-punk-rock duo Triumph of Lethargy, opened the show.

Unequivocally, this was an engaging, raw rock concert minus the clutter and histrionics.

Brock sang with genuine emotion, alternately mumbling and enunciating with determination, while the band's hard-driving, propulsive bursts sent bolts of electricity through the sea of shoe-gazers, teenagers and middle-aged fans of rock.

Though obviously uncomfortable with between-song banter or stories from the road, Brock was genial and more vocal than usual. After coming on stage to a din of whistles and heavy-handed claps, Brock said, "We're Modest Mouse, and we're going to play a couple songs here." And with that the band opened a sweltering 90-minute set with "Bury Me With It," a cut from the group's second major-label release, "Good News For People Who Love Bad News."

As Brock sang in his trademark lispy fashion, "Well we move to the left and we move to the right/and sure as hell stayed out almost every single night/but if the party's over, and the fun has to end, would you do this for me, my friend" it was as if he sent a tacit message to the crush of people on the floor of the Paramount who proceeded to resurrect moshing, creating a whirlpool effect complete with crowd surfing and bodies being pulled out of the thick.

The relative intimacy of the Paramount amplified Modest Mouse's punk-rock ethos. The band sampled heavily from "Good News... ," from the alt-country twang of "Bukowski," which featured Brock doing some fine picking on the banjo, to the dreamy "Float On" and sinister, hard-hitting "Satin In A Coffin" (also featuring cellist Arnold). The band tore into a few cuts from "The Lonesome Crowded West" as well, including a sweaty, swaggering "Doin' the Cockroach."

Modest Mouse concluded the show with a short encore that included "The Good Times Are Killing Me" and the crowd-pleasing "Trailer Trash." Though he seemed to pour every ounce of himself into the performance and the hour was getting late, Brock was as every bit sharp at the end as he was when the evening began.

Tina Potterf: 206-464-8214 or tpotterf@seattletimes.com

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