Video: Fires of Rome, NYC 11/06/08

Posted Tuesday, November 11, 2008 @ 02:18 in Video by Michael Vazquez

I didn't think that arriving at 9:30 meant being late for anything other than the open bar, but when I got to Hiro Ballroom, Fires of Rome were already onstage, which turned out to be kind of a good thing – it sucks to miss a big chunk of any set, but sometimes you walk in on the right tune, in this case "Set In Stone", which has been remixed by M83, DJ Angola, Dada Life, Mo DJ and Don Rimini. Played live, it’s a nice and minimal affair, which isn't to say without power. Lead Singer Andrew Wyatt kinda reminded me (from the view I had) of the guy in the film "Dazed and Confused" who takes on the bully but ends up getting clobbered, in a scene which could kinda signify the birth of a yuppie. And while Wyatt was wearing a suit-vest he was far more about the ever-popular tortured-artist effect (that's a compliment) as he held his head in his hands, brows furrowed, face screwed up like a broke-ass half-mad Russian poet, or some other tormented, flighty cat. His vocal style kinda reminded me of Billy Squire's or even Ozzy’s clipped delivery, say, on “Paranoid”, and the arrangement for "Set In Stone" kinda felt like the mainstream, Top-40 rock of the late 70's that took to the emerging bouncy New Wave bass lines and minor keyboard flares (again a compliment) that gave songs cleaner lines, as it were. My favorite moment comes when the lead singer points to the crowd with an indicting finger, delivering a line that ends "...mechanism that makes you a survivor", rhyming "survivor" with the preceding words “vagina” and “saliva” capping off a meditation begun with the self-observation: “I was disgustingly average as a child” and for a moment, in the haze of loud music, bright lights and the beers I’d drank on the way over, I was wondering how each person in the room would act if we were on a sinking ship, or on a chaotic line to get into a club, or backstage trying to be cool… ‘Good when a band makes you think for a moment…this was followed by Cazals’ U.S debut, up next. – Michael Vazquez 

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