Deer Tick live: Can't transcend expectations

When John J. McCauley III took the stage to perform a solo song before his band, Deer Tick, joined him, a T-shirt was visible under his flannel shirt. It seemed as if the rather large message was “Shut The Fuck Up,” and it seemed just right; edgy and devil may care. Then, as his bandmates stepped onto the stage, McCauley shed the flannel and revealed the true message: Shut The Duck Up, with a cartoon image of a duck completing the design. That, I realized, was much more fitting. A clever turn of phrase that earns a doubletake, unselfconsciously silly.

If that sentiment wasn’t driven home at the outset of the show, it certainly was by its end and McCauley, naked save for a strategically hung guitar, tore through the band’s by-now traditional set closing “La Bamba.”

In between was a set that was good, though it suffered in comparison to the last time I saw the band, a June 2009 show just before the release of the band’s sophomore album, Born on Flag Day. Credit the completely demolished low expectations I had before that show for the difference. I’d heard a couple of songs on MySpace before that show, and was intrigued but not smitten. After seeing the show — the best thing I saw all year — I was a bona fide fan.

Hearing songs from the band’s first two albums was as good as I remembered, and some of the new songs slated for the forthcoming Black Dirt Sessions album were just as captivating. But perhaps the new songs are a bit more polished, or familiarity breeds complacency or something in between. Either way, the show didn’t move me the way I expected. Really, you could probably chalk it up to two things: Having to fight with a much larger crowd for a view and unrealistic expectations. I was so blown away the first time that it would have been impossible to equal.

As it was, the band was in top form. McCauley is still among the most compelling frontmen in rock, and his bandmates have only gotten better. New guitarist Ian O’Neil seems a better fit for the band than his predecessor, Andrew Tobiassen (though I could have done with fewer of O’Neil’s songs in the set), and the new keyboard player offered a lot of nice faux-Hammond organ to flesh out the sound.

Any misgivings I have are of the dad variety. Seeing McCauley, who announced at the show’s start that he had been drinking most of the day, strip out of his clothes, I thought less about the wild abandon it signaled and more about the escalation it heralds. The band has a reputation as a wild live band, and as more people hear about exploits like this, the bar will be raised. McCauley is an awfully talented songwriter and performer. I’d hate to see him backed into a corner as he works to ramp up his antics to satisfy each subsequent crowd that won’t be mollified by a simple strip tease.

For now, he’s a young guy playing rock ‘n’ roll on the road with friends, and I’m willing to cut him tremendous amounts of slack (which I’m sure eases his mind) as long as he’s able to deliver. I’m eager to hear Black Dirt Sessions and see what McCauley and Co. have been able to do.