Dr. Dog

Dr. Dog have a sound and demeanor that is the musical equivalent of a micro-brewery, and their set had all the makings of a perfect club-level indie rock show: Interesting opening band, full but not too crowded club, $2 PBR’s, active but not obnoxious crowd, and a hard working Beatles-inspired melodic/rocking headliner. Too bad the guitars were so dominant in the mix they crowded out every bit of nuance and dynamics in Dr. Dog’s songs.

The band has a well developed psychedelic indie rock sound featuring keyboards and synths as well as drums, bass, rhythm and lead guitar. Dominant guitars are fine for a Van Halen arena show or a Steve Miller cover band at your local saloon, but here it just didn’t work. How did it happen? We’ll get to that.

First of all the venue, Radio Radio, is situated in prime real estate in Indianapolis’s often overlooked Fountain Square area. There are cheap restaurants and little art galleries and such. Perfect. Inside, Radio Radio has a 15 ft. wide stage which is ample enough for most bands. (Bonus: the supports under the stage are a little weak, so the surface was bouncing like a WWF wrestling ring whenever the band would get rowdy. You could judge the tempo of the song by observing the magnitude of the undulation of the amplifier stacks, watching how close the stacks were to tipping was a nice side activity.)

The opening band Everything Now seemed pretty interesting (didn’t arrive until their last song). Their lead singer also play saxophone. Would’ve been a good lead up to Dr. Dog’s psychedelic indie rock. The crowd was Midwestern hipsters and young cubicle workers just looking for a good time. Several danced and one guy was particularly stoked on the music such that he placed himself directly in front of the lead singer, his energetic fist pumps sometimes coming within inches of grazing the band member’s face. Who said punk is dead?

Taking the stage, Philly based Dr. Dog looked ready. 3/5 of the band were wearing sunglasses for the whole show, and another 3/5 were wearing fedora hats. Performance-wise, the band tore through 17 tracks with a blistering abandon. Some more melodic songs would crop up now and again, especially later in the set, but regardless of how varied and proficient the band played, all a person could hear is guitar.

And more guitar. Blame the sound guy? Maybe. It’s quite possible the guy got pulled from his usual gig mixing classic rock cover bands at some local yokel redneck bar down the street. To be fair, if everyone one was wearing mullets, watching Nascar, and beating their wives the mix would have been perfect. It’s also possible that the band wanted to emphasize the guitars in order to ‘rock out.’ Either way, what could have been a truly inspired show was brought low.

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