Live Review: Mercury Lounge
February 27, 2009
By: Chad Saville

Rating: 7.5/11

“Can you turn up the tambourine please?” Damon Tutunjian (guitar and vocals) asked the sound guy at Mercury Lounge last Friday as he and Seana Cormody (keys, guitar, vocals) stopped to tune their instruments twenty seconds into the opening of a song, "San Cristobal de Las Casas," from They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons (1996).

The audience, now teased and waiting for the rest of the song, broke into cheers and elated applause. “Oh, you like that…” Tutunjian said to the standing room only crowd, turning a mistake into an opportunity to create dramatic tension. “We’ll stop in the middle of all our songs if that’s what you guys like!” With that, The Swirlies leapt back into their tune and issued an absolute wall of greedy, distorted guitar sound. It was all at once ear splitting and amazing that The Swirlies could transition from an obvious slip to sonic brilliance in a period of about twenty seconds.

Apparently, even after a long layoff, The Swirlies have lost none of their luster. The veteran Boston dream pop band, who in the past have been compared to all the great shoegazers, have not played regular dates since about 2003, following release of Cats of the Wild Volume 2. It is rumored that Tutunjian is a PhD candidate in linguistics at the University of Michigan, so apparently rock-stardom is not first and foremost on his list of priorities, although it was announced last year they would take a few days and travel up the east coast to make stops in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The Swirlies at Mercury Lounge was a creature of false starts, dramatic pauses, and waiting for the generous payoff – which inevitably did come.

The venue was filled to capacity, and then some, but there was an intimate atmosphere to the whole affair, as if some old fans had wandered into the practice space for an opportunity to peer in on a once beloved group struggling with the intricacies of time and execution. Yes, there had been a long layoff. No matter, a few mistakes cannot keep a good band down. On the contrary, the few mistakes seemed to only add to the texture of the performance, adding a personal touch for the audience to clasp on to as they cheered the band through the rough patches and into moments of bliss.

Maybe the three shows between Philadelphia and Boston last weekend will be enough to inspire The Swirlies to put out more material or put a few more miles on the tour bus. God knows it would be great to have them back in the saddle, because when they hit their stride, they are a truly remarkable group of musicians.