A few songs into Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ Friday night set, frontman Kevin Starrs made the announcment that their next tune, “Death’s Door”, would be their last song. He said this when the band was only a few songs in and after they had been playing for probably less than 30 minutes – an April Fool’s joke? It would seem so but then again, it wouldn’t have been too far out of the realm of possibility if the band just jammed out for an hour plus on that song to close out their set. Honestly, that might have even been kind of cool. Luckily though, the band did still have many songs left in them.
For those not in the know, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats are an English stoner/doom/psych band with a penchant for heavy riffage and vintage horror film iconography. For those already in the know … well, there’s a good chance you just might have been at this show. And if you were, hopefully you remembered to bring some earplugs. Yes, Uncle Acid can get loud, and their music is definitely heavy, but in songs like set highlights “Mind Crawler” and “Crystal Spiders”, the band displays a solid sense of melody and harmony as well – they sound a bit like what might have happened if the McDonald brothers from Redd Kross were way more into Sabbathy sludge than they were into power pop.
It may have been April Fool’s Day but with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats in town, the vibe at the Danforth on Friday night was decidedly more Oct 31 than April 1.