Modest Mouse at Palace Theatre (12/10/2022)

Modest Mouse is out touring by celebrating the album that launched their career 25 years ago, The Lonesome Crowded West, a seminal album that has received high praise and a lofty perch. Pitchfork ranks it #29 of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1990’s. Spin has it at #59 of the 200 Greatest Albums from 1985-2005. And for a night the band’s base was given a rare treat of hearing the album played in its entirety live at the Palace Theatre.

Mattress aka Rex Marshall opened the evening with an interesting mix of lounge meets industrial meets poetry slam, all in a gold sports coat and shoes to match. Born and raised in Las Vegas, Marshall inhabits the ghost of all the great lounge lizards of the strip if they were to transplant to Portland, OR and incorporate all there is to incorporate of the city. (City Motto: Keep Portland Weird)

Marshall’s set involved first warming up with some stretches and leg lifts. And in between rifts of ironic and hilarious lyrics from his two albums Looking for My People and FUBAR, he moved across the spacious stage with dance moves that sometimes involved martial art moves and a nice golf swing. All in a gold suit! What more could you want in an opening act?

Modest Mouse wanted to reflect the makeup of the band when they recorded their seminal album in 1997. So a quartet took the stage with original members, Isaac Brock on lead vocals and guitar and Jeremiah Green on drums, joined by Russell Higbee on bass and Simon O’Connor on guitar.

What made The Lonesome Crowded West such an influential masterpiece is because it sounded like nothing before it. Inhabiting chord structures that seemed just a little off allowed the band to explore discordant feelings of isolation. Brock said the album is about the unintended effects of urban sprawl, which at the time was where the band lived in Issaquah, WA, a suburb of Seattle.

Many fans that filled the Palace had an intimate love for the album for they even started singing before Brock could lead them on songs like “(Lounge) Closing Time” and “Doing the Cockroach”.

Then there were songs when the band went full throttle with “Shit Luck” and ”Trucker’s Atlas” where Brock got on his knees and actually sang into his guitar, reverb and distortion be damned. But there were quieter moments when Brock and O’Connor switched to acoustic guitars and played “Bankrupt on Selling” and “Jesus Christ Was an Only Child”. (Perhaps the original latchkey kid)

After taking a needed break, Modest Mouse returned with a four-song encore, the last, “3^rd Planet”, a finale that started briefly as an acoustical experiment until Brock stopped the song and asked for his electric guitar for the finish.

And as the audience applauded in appreciation, Brock took his time to linger, first to briefly thank the crowd, then to move around the stage to check the equipment. It reminded me of a Herbie Hancock show I saw where he did the same thing, fiddling with his keyboard and powering down an Apple computer as the audience continued to clap.

And as Brock finally left the stage and the main lights went up, as if on cue Hancock’s “Rockit” started to play as the audience began to slowly filter out of the theatre.

Remaining tour dates: