When I first saw STS9, I was 16 and they were a thought-provoking, ludicrously skilled, highly energetic band with a small but committed following of warm, interesting people. Its music dipped and swelled, generating tension and then releasing it in a haze of live drum and bass -- organic electronica. With its rhythmically enveloping music, it has something that I don't think anyone else has, or can really match. It's pointless to try to describe what my first several shows were like, and I'll probably never have the vocabulary or syntax to convey what that music and community meant to me. Just know that they were important.
Thankfully, I've changed a lot since I was 16. I'm not saying I wasn't the man in 10th grade -- I totally was -- I've just gotten a lot of cool clothes since then that I can't imagine living without now. Predictably, my life is a lot different now than it was then, and I'm confident that I am a deeper, generally better person than I was at my first STS9 show.
I can't say that about the band. Since I first saw them almost five and a half years ago, the quintet and its music have evolved from probingly intense, organic electronica to a kind of futuristic, prog-arena electro hip hop with the emotional and spiritual depth of an "Oprah" rerun. For the last nine months, I've had mixed feelings about this new incantation of STS9, but the last of three shows in Oregon this past weekend may have been the nail in my personal fandom coffin.
While Thursday's show in Eugene and Friday's show in Portland generously blended together old, current and brand-new sounds, showcasing much of the band's 10-year career, Saturday's Portland show was all about showing off the grandiose electronica sound STS9 began crafting with 2005's "ArtiFact" and culminated in last summer's "Peaceblaster" and this fall's mini-tour of scaled-down PA performances, in which the group's music was played through drum machines, laptops and midi synthesizers.
In 2003, STS9 was playing songs inspired by Mayan mythology on stages decorated with crystals, channeling the collective effervescence of a passionate fanbase that followed them around the country. On Saturday, as has been the overwhelming rule for the last 18 months, the group churned out bombastic electro banger after banger, doing everything possible to make Portland dance, emotions and spirituality be damned.
And the mission was more than accomplished. Epic, melodically towering songs like "Be Nice" and up-tempo, low-end-driven prog-techno songs like "Shock Doctrine" and "Lo Swaga" made people's bodies do uproarious things all night long. It looked like my first show, in which everyone in the audience seemed to subconsciously synchronize his or her body to the rhythms coming from the stage, anticipating peerless drummer Zach Velmer's rhythmic shifts and downbeats and pulsing to bassist David Murphy's warm tone. That kind of communion was what made seeing STS9 such an exuberant experience for me.
That feeling doesn't really happen any more, for two reasons: The first, and I say this knowing how condescending it is going to sound, is the audience itself. I realize that STS9 crowds weren't always cultural melting pots, but I haven't been anywhere that has matched the positivity and unity of crowds at places like Mississippi Nights in 2004 or even the Higher Ground in 2006. And yes, there were a lot of white people with dreadlocks who really missed Phish, but there were also a lot of relatively clean-cut hip-hop heads, bluegrass fans and ravers who sought the energy that STS9 cultivated and shared.
In Portland, and elsewhere for at least the last 18 months, the STS9 demographic has changed to replace a lot of the seekers, dreaded or not, with a bizarre breed of thugged-out quasi-hippie scenesters that put as much time into their wardrobes as they do into listening to STS9. One kid, wearing stunna shades, a Billionaire Boys Club track jacket, and (get this) a Bob Marley flag as a kind of kafia, stumbled over to me with his identical friend and asked, "Yo homie, Are you thizzzzin' tonight?" While I appreciated the Mac Dre reference, I did not appreciate the shallow, party-first attitude that this poser and people like him brought to the STS9 community. It was clear that I would not be talking to this boy about Mayan mythology.
But the bigger problem, I think, isn't the crowd, but the music. As the band's tastes and music have shifted from atmospheric drum and bass and down-tempo IDM to epic club bangers, its fan base has largely shifted from those seeking to be illuminated and touched to those looking to rage really hard. There's nothing wrong with this. I like to rage really hard, and with songs like "Heavy" and "The Unquestionable Supremacy of Nature," STS9 proved that it can provide the musical accompaniment to that ambitious goal.
But I can rage anywhere. What saddens me about Saturday's show and what will keep me away from STS9 for a while is that the group no longer seems interested in pursuing the emotional and spiritual dynamism that I and so many others found in its performance. As STS9 indicated during the weekend, it is still possible to get lost in the bright ebullience of "Circus" or to touch the ineffable in the ether of "Jebez," but those achievements are rare. I used to think the only part of being 16 that I missed was the carefree humid summers of a kid with a car and no obligations. Saturday in Portland added "STS9 as I know it" to the short list.
