Dillon Schwartz

Just what the fuck is this supposed to be? Well, if you’re reading this, I’m going to guess you’ve got more than a few memories, vague, blurry, booze-drenched or otherwise of concerts. Good concerts. Concerts you maybe weren’t in the position to write about at the time. Well, this is where you can dredge up those memories like so many dried chunks from a dive-bar bathroom floor and paint some nostalgic spew that someone might read. Goodluck.

-D.B.

I'm late. I'm jittery. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm not missing these guys.

I text Noah from the backseat of my cab as it winds up and over and through Greenpoint toward Saint Vitus. He tells me I've unfortunately missed both Proper and Night Surf, who you dear friend should definitely check out, but that lucky for me, I’ll make it there for Shellshag and Iron Chic. I step in from the deep freeze of the late February night, and jam my coat into my bag which I stash near the stage after finding our photographer and pal, Noah. We grab some beers and brace for the show, so let’s get into it.

Shellshag is getting set to play and appears to have erected a strange sort of alien amplifier sound spire in the dead-center of the stage. The crowd is dense already, growing by the moment, and packing ever tighter into Vitus’ unseasonably sweaty, yet somehow perfect performance space. Just as the room seems about ready to burst, Jen and John square up on stage, facing each other across the Shellshag sound spire, and unleash their sonic glory upon us. I’d never seen Shellshag live before, and what little I knew about the duo came from RVIVR’s cover of their extremely shoutable song “Resilient Bastard”, which they treated the audience to about mid-way through their set. John was adamant and very vocal about getting the crowd ready for Iron Chic, and we certainly were by the end of Shellshag’s raucous set. John was also kind enough to provide yours truly with a bit of a keepsake before exiting the stage, Shellshag’s setlist scribbled onto Iron Chic’s sophomore album The Constant One.

Now, onto the act that drew me to Greenpoint, to serene Saint Vitus on this frigid February night, Iron Chic. These guys, their live show, their essence, something about them just seems to lock right into place for me. What’s more, I know I’m not the only one, every single Iron Chic show I’ve been to has been a writhing mass of scream-along-joy. I found myself jammed to the jarring shaking and screaming front, nearly face-to-face with Jason Lubrano, Iron Chic’s frontman, at the crescendo of each and every chorus. Amidst a mass of fans who not only knew every word to every song Iron Chic would play that night, but seemed to scream all those words both with and at Jason all at once. Yet, like every Iron Chic show, all this chaos is and was and will always be a kind of brilliant perfect harmony and communion.

I don’t know, but to me what makes Iron Chic, their shows, their sound so incredible is that they hit on an emotion, a feeling, a something, that all-at-once feels intensely personal yet entirely communal.

Their music is determined to spin the stagnancy and isolation of our modern moment into a kind of perverse joy. A joy in knowing that nothing matters except what we make matter, and why shouldn’t that be each other. Take this lyric from “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” off the aforementioned album The Constant One: It might not feel like we're moving//But we're falling into the Sun//We're just falling forever//This once we all fall together. So, back on Earth in sweaty Saint Vitus, we swirled and screamed and fell together to the tune of Iron Chic’s best, and I loved every single moment of it.

I love this band and I love the people that love this band and you should too. After the show, Noah and I met a couple of dudes who had come all the way from Boston, MA just to see Iron Chic that night. No other reason to be in NY and really only a special kinda band can pull people from 3+ hours away for a single set.

Falling Forever with Iron Chic and Shellshag at Saint Vitus 2/28

Dillon Schwartz

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