Review & Photos: The Arcs At The Fillmore Philadelphia

Words and Images by: Jake Krolick

The Arcs :: 12.16.15 :: The Fillmore Philadelphia :: Philadelphia, PA

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”129″ gal_title=”20151216 The Arcs Jake Krolick”]

When Dan Auerbach forms a band you know its soul will be rooted in the blues. With The Arcs he’s tipped his style scales quite a bit more in the direction of psychedelic 1960s rock mixed with R&B and soul. Auerbach has surrounded himself with a group of musicians, old friends really, who are all equally comfortable making musical decisions while helping one another expand their horizons. Live, The Arcs music came across like a distant cousin of The Black Keys who had dropped a bunch of acid and have been living on a diet of soul and ‘60s rock.

Their tour stop in Philadelphia at The Fillmore showcased a band filled to the brim with well-seasoned musicians dabbling around in both old and new musical territories. Some of it worked amazingly well while other moments fell short. If you came looking for The Black Keys then you may have been disappointed. However, if you were in search of a new animal, something orchestrated differently with less garage rock and more robust soul, then you made out like a kid in a candy store.

Sure, The Arcs had their garagey moments, like the show opening pair of “Velvet Ditch” and “Bad Girl,” but their album is titled Yours, Dreamily for a reason. Auerbach proved how effortlessly he could drop the shackles of The Black Keys to take on a more layered approach to music. With a mariachi trio, two drummers and some colorful oil slick backdrops, The Arcs created a lush soundscape steeped in melancholy and R&B grandeur.

By the third song of the evening Auerbach addressed the crowd directly saying, “Well hello Philly! This next track is special and just for you.” Nick Movshon offered heavy bass blasts throughout the dirty and jammed-out version of the yet unreleased track “Keep on Dreaming.” The over six-minute song was easily one of the highlights of the show. Auerbach did his best guitar acrobatics across the stage, with his guitar – aptly named “The Rocket” – shining like a ninth band member. This custom built beauty, a cross between a late 1960s Italian EKO Rokes model and a Japanese Kawai Flying Wedge was built by Auerbach’s longtime guitar tech Dan Johnson. Auerbach massaged notes out of the unique instrument that made the crowd howl with delight.

Richard Swift sat most of the evening behind a second drum set alongside drummer Homer Steinweiss. Auerbach’s longtime friends created an incredibly robust bed of rhythms for keyboardist and second guitarist Leon Michaels, Movshon and the Mariachi Flor de Toloache trio to play in. By the middle of the show the vibe in The Fillmore was mysterious and psychedelic. The stage was washed with blue and red splotches. Auerbach traded his electric guitar for a patriotic colored acoustic electric.

Dan’s singing sounded like Ritchie Valens on the first of two back-to-back covers, “Too Young to Burn” by Sonny and The Sunsets. The trio of female mariachi voices echoed Auerbach’s falsetto vocals and transported the performance back to rock ‘n’ roll’s early 1960s roots. If “Too Young To Burn” brought us back to the crooner side of early ‘60s rock, then the next cover of “I Wanna Holler” by Gary U.S. Bonds was a wonderful juxtaposition of rock sounds in early ‘60s. “I Wanna Holler” once again changed the tempo of the evening as Auerbach switched back to electric guitar while double drums and mariachi hand claps led him into a smoldering guitar riff and growling the lyrics “I wanna holler but the town is too small / Tell everyone I feel nine feet tall.” Auerbach kept consistent eye contact with his bassist and drummers as he moved between the microphone and the drum kits digging in on the jams with his back to the crowd and eyes on Movshon and Swift. It would have been nice to see him move over to the Mariachi singers more during this cover to see just where the energy could go on the right side of the stage.

Before ending the show The Arcs encored with a dark, funkier version of “Young” from their latest ongoing collaborative series and LP, The Arcs vs. The Inventors Vol. 1. The subtle violin touches by the mariachi singers and double drums really helped this song burn live before The Arcs wrapped things up nicely with “Stay In My Corner.”

The Arcs have tapped into a growing sound trend that comes from the past, but is being reborn in modern music. Just listen to what Leon Bridges, Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats or Madisen Ward and The Mama Bear are doing. This music is new again, drenched with flavors from the past, but reinvented for the future.