Sunset Rubdown’s Somerville show – a sequence of words that feels stunning to even say in the year 2023 – is only the sixth gig they’ve played in roughly 14 years, all contained in the prior week. Their reunion was cause for equal amounts of surprise and celebration for those who followed them in the aughts, alongside the many other outfits helmed by British Columbia-born Spencer Krug, who was absolutely everywhere across that decade and the next. But even among the many bands of which he was principal member (Frog Eyes and Wolf Parade notable examples), Sunset Rubdown with its sound and lyricism left a unique mark even across the band’s relatively brief initial lifespan.
While the band began as a solo project, Krug found a handful of multi-instrumentalists in Camilla Wynne, Michael Doerksen, and Jordan Robson-Carter; they released a trilogy of LPs as an ensemble. All of those, as well as Krug’s initial solo release, feature recurring lyrical motifs that bind them together within a shared fiction, an impressionistic amalgam of spirits, dragons, and so on. This mythos, some repurposed, other parts invented, formed a unique lens through which Krug and the band filtered their writing, resulting in something inimitable even during a crowded boom of new sounds.
From the west coast of the US, Sunset Rubdown have brought along Nicholas Merz, both as a fifth member to round out their lineup as well as to open each evening. The maudlin cowboy charm of his one-man show is augmented by a lone pedal steel, looped and filtered through a wide array of effects. These repetitions work through material from his LP American Classic, and culminate in a deconstructed cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Waves of Fear’. Before departing the stage Merz speaks a bit about his affinity for Sunset Rubdown, and his experience likely mirrors that of many in attendance: while he learned of their music in 2005, this tour is the first time he’s been able to see them live.
Sunset Rubdown themselves start their set as a four-piece, mimicking the original lineup – though Merz sits side-stage from early on, even before he’s called to join on bass. After the first song, ‘Snake’s Got a Leg’, one of several so-named songs in the band’s canon (this one is Roman numeral three), he promises that the band is going to “play every song we know how to play.” Despite resounding cheers, throughout the show Krug apologizes for the length of the set, even though complaining of too much Sunset Rubdown after such a long absence seems like it’s almost chemically impossible for those in the room. A few times he introduces a song by saying, “This one’s an oldie,” but soon dispenses with the convention since “they’re all oldies” – though this later is revealed not to be strictly true.
The setlist, for its part, is nothing shy of a dream come true for all those who’ve been waiting to hear these songs for ages. An early emotionally-charged swell comes with ‘Us Ones in Between’, where Krug’s narrator surrenders himself to the whims of the object of his affection even as it threatens to destroy him. While a fair portion of the wealth of attendees know every word to each song, this one sparks the night’s first (of many) resounding sing-along moments when it moves from the bridge into the final verse, like there was a need to sing it together stewing all these years.
Wynne’s contributions on xylophone – one of many instruments she plays alongside synth and percussion – are essential to the quiet moments in the band’s catalog, like in the following ‘Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings’. “Oceans never listen to us anyway,” Krug sings, “and if I fall into the drink / I will say your name before I sink”. It’s this level of theatrical writing that has always so adeptly bound the fantastical to the personal in the band’s music.
Merz joins the band following ‘Winged/Wicked Things’, and throughout the night Doerksen and Robson-Cramer trade off between guitar and drum duty, causing a bit of downtime as they adjust the drum stool height and such. During one of these intermissions Krug jokes that in all that time they’ve still never gotten good at mid-set banter, but does tell the story of the band’s reformation. In a manner totally befitting their music, Krug dreamed that the band was back together and enjoying it, and the next day dispatched some emails that culminated in this tour. The band’s first song with all five onstage is ‘Stadiums and Shrines II’, which makes ample use of the additional instrument, particularly in its frantic, epic ending portion. When the final note arrives, Robson-Cramer shakes the lingering note from his guitar and gives it a couple of smacks on the pickups to leave the signal hanging in the air a bit longer.
While Krug begins the night on his keyboard, perched on a stool and rocking back and forth, rarely with a foot actually on the floor, he takes up a guitar for the midsection of the evening, including ‘Idiot Heart’ from the band’s still-most-recent LP, Dragonslayer. It’s one of many songs that reuses lyrics all the way back from Shut Up I Am Dreaming, this time referencing ‘The Men Are Called Horsemen There’. It’s another high point of the night, everyone in the crowd singing together once again, Robson-Cramer playing at lightning speed, as if in a trance, with Merz standing over his tom watching intently while creating the rhythm of the song’s conclusion.
After the sinister ‘The Empty Threats of Little Lord’, heralded by Wynne moving around a small cylindrical object over the rim of her cymbals, Krug walks around the stage and tilts Merz’s cowboy hat downward, then returns to the mic and announces they’re going to play a new song. The song is called ‘We’re Losing Light’, and he says a recorded version will appear “if and when” they make a new album. The confirmation that they’re writing together again, and at least bandying about the notion of a record, is sure to be even more uplifting news, and the song gives the impression the band is picking up close to where they left off in 2009, continuing to refine their sound. At the end, Robson-Cramer twirls his drumstick in his hand and then switches back to guitar.
The closure of the main set brings a tune many have been waiting for, with ‘Mending of the Gown’, a standout from Random Spirit Lover. Krug’s piano line is as lively as anything in the band’s catalog and there’s a little bit of call-and-response vocals between he and Wynne that the crowd joins in gleefully. And after a short break, the evening concludes with one more song, the same one that capped Dragonslayer 14 years ago, the homonymous ‘Dragon’s Lair’. It too calls back, now to ‘Little Lord’ where Krug declared, “There are wars to win!” And even though a four year gap spans those two albums, it still goes on.
Given the possibility of another album from Sunset Rubdown, it will be fascinating to see how a new collection of music draws from what has preceded it – I couldn’t discern any direct references in ‘We’re Losing Light’, but a recorded version may yield some upon closer examination. But irrespective of whether or not their next release continues to play with this anthology of stories, it is clear that, as with many other indie rock bands of the 00s to find their way back to the stage, their music remains creative, beloved, and vital.
