I came away from seeing Frightened Rabbit feeling happier and more full of joy than I had from seeing a band in a long time.  As I wrote earlier this year, I was a huge fan of their 2008 album The Midnight Organ Fight.  Unfortunately, all of the things I loved about the record--the almost-humiliating honesty, the exuberance of emotion, and the wild-eyed desperation--seemed like prime candidates for touring fatigue, where the intensity and forthrightness of the recorded sound would gradually dissipate with the necessity of playing the same songs night after night. Some of my favorite bands disappoint for that very reason. 

Thankfully, Frightened Rabbit did not disappoint.  In many ways, the album's spastic emotional bursts exploded even more on stage, with brothers Scott and Grant Hutchinson as the focal points of that energy.  Scott (singer, guitar player, and songwriter) seemed ready to burst at any moment, his voice pushing its own limits, the guitar clasped in his hands like the last rung of a rope ladder above the ocean. 

But the real surprise for me was Grant Hutchinson.  His meticulous drumming on the album provided a rhythmic complexity that the songs, played on their own, might not have suggested.  But with the first few beats of "Modern Leper", once you hear those drums, you can't imagine the songs without them.  Hearing the songs live, I realized how necessary and powerful the drums were, as powerful as Scott Hutchinson's pleading voice--the drums were an emotional counterpoint to the lyrics. And on top of that, Grant's singing would rise out of the speakers, its source not immediately determinable until Scott would thrash away, and you would seem him straining against the mic, his eyes closed and his arms a blur as he pounded out rhythms on the drums.

Between songs they were funny, self-depreciating, and engaged, laughing and joking with each other, and with us.  They invited the audience to sing along on "Poke", which Scott played sans-microphone or amplification, which somehow made the embarrassingly intimate song even more intimate and less embarrassing. 

If you don't have the record, buy it.  If you haven't seen them live yet, find a way to do it.