To watch a show at the Fox Theater in Oakland is to be watched by the twin gods of sound, their golden hands clasping golden bowls, each six feet tall, ten feet off the ground. Their eyes are a luminescent emerald green that stare out, silently across the crowd, and their hearts’ a red fire radiating from their chests. Whether looking over the mosh pit at a Vince Staples show or engulfed in the cloud of marijuana smoke as Noname takes the stage, they are there, guarding the sanctity of this place. Tonight they watch over The The, a London-based band formed in 1979. They have had one constant over the last 45 years: Matt Johnson. The band is on tour for the first time in 16 years after releasing their first album in the last 25 years, titled Ensoulment.
Tonight the crowd is nearly all older than me, many sporting leather jackets with insignia on the back, but not of any motorcycle clubs that I know. “Yeah, we’re a burning man crew,” says a man whose sequined jacket reads “Rangers: Beyond the odd, beyond the strange, beyond the weird.” The crowd, not in unison, sways to a song that seems fit for Frankenstein: “We are more than just mere molecules made in animated flesh,” croons the opener, whose band name isn’t listed anywhere.
Back in the lobby, there’s commotion at the merch table. “Karen can’t be at this thing! They go to every 80s show.” Karen—bright pink hair and plaid red corduroy jeans—hugs the animated man, also in his fifties. Karen tells me that when they were in high school, The The came on the radio, but only a couple of songs, often “This Is the Day” and “Uncertainty.” She’s here because she loves how Matt Johnson “falls into that deep sexy voice.” Her friend was introduced to the band by a girl he was dating in some tiny Colorado ski town, who had “brought a CD with her from out west and wanted him to hear the piano” At the front of the line, two men my dad’s age immediately strip and put on their matching The The shirts. This moment, this space, is a portal through time, back to when these folks were other, younger versions of themselves.
Matt Johnson understands his role as a guide through the ages, telling the crowd as he takes the stage, “If I had any magical power, it would be time travel. But here though, right now is the best we got”. He is in a reflective mood, and the lights’ reflection off of his bald head render him almost as an oracle from another time. “The last time we played was before iPhones, before the screens, so please just be here. I love seeing your faces” he pleads. The band functions like a group of musicians who made it to the stardom they had always imagined, and with their winnings, invested back into music. When a drummer “makes it,” he seems to buy more drums; the drummer of The The is almost hidden by what must be a 40-piece drum set. The bassist plays a different guitar for almost every song, some double-necked.
The act of music making, the act of playing these chords in this order, opens memories from decades past for Matt, ones he relives through each song. “I was on a Greek island when I wrote this next one…crying.” The next song he wrote when he was twenty, trying to capture “the pure joy that the human heart can feel.” Much of the band’s music is political but focuses on the power of interpersonal growth. Matt challenges the crowd to act not as a room of strangers but, for most of the concert, act as a single instrument. “Are you in good voice?” he posits. The crowd responds enthusiastically, singing the words to each song. Chris, the band’s piano and harmonica player, is a maestro, switching between the two sets of keys he plays until he collapses on the board. Between his solos on the harmonica, he wanders the stage as if in awe of the hypnotic lighting and of the life he gets to lead. Listening to him play, I realized that this world tour is something he hasn’t done in many years, and after another couple tour dates, it’s not something he’ll do again. The whole crowd seemed to feel lucky. You could feel it in their silence when he played—honored to be sharing this moment with him.
The last chords rang out through the grand hall. The band disappears behind the grand red velvet curtain and we file out between the ever watching eyes of the twin gods, manning their posts as guardians of this temple of sound. I pass below the grand lobby chandelier and into the dark Oakland November night.
Review by Christopher LeBoa
