Simian Mobile Disco brought their synth-heavy dance party to a sold-out Neumo’s on March 13 and were welcomed by a boisterous and enthusiastic crowd of dance-crazed fans.

SMD’s Jameses (Ford and Shaw) twiddled and tweaked knobs on a stack of vintage synths and analog drum machines.

The duo’s live rig was a messy maze of midi cables, digital effects and obscure gear that looked like it would require an advanced degree from MIT to assemble.

Visually stunning to watch? Hardly, but the music made up for it and the crowd was there to dance–or jump in place amidst a sweaty mass of people packed in the club.

Surrounded by towers of pulsing strobe lights the duo remixed many of their best songs (“It’s the Beat” and “Tits and Acid”) while adding flourishes of sequenced arpeggios and phased-out string parts.

The sweat-drenched crowd was having all of it and some.

I was very excited to see GZA of the Wu-Tang clan perform his legendary album, Liquid Swords, in its entirety. The crowd was a diverse bunch of frat boys, b-boys with comically baggy and loudly graphic Wu-Wear, aging 30somethings on a nostalgia trip (myself included), and a 16 year-old kid who, as the GZA pointed out, was a year old when Liquid Swords came out. Joints were smoked. People had their fists in the air, waiving them like they just didn’t care for the whole show.

The crowd was at a fever pitch when the opening strains of the first track (“When I was little…”) began, but, after the initial thrill wore off, the law of diminishing returns was in effect. There seemed to be a miscommunication between the GZA and the DJ, as an entire verse of the opening track got dropped, depriving me of my favorite rhyme on the album: “Style is old like Mark V sneakers/lyrics is weak like clock radio speakers.” The GZA stopped to explain to his DJ which hand gesture meant “cut” and which one meant “drop” the beat. (This was far too technical for me to understand.) There also was an issue with “Duel of the Iron Mic” but I believed they played it again later in the show. (Things were getting a little hazy at that point.) Most egregiously, it was hard to hear GZA and, when he is performing an album with so many great lyrics and rhymes, that was a real disappointment. It was one of those shows where the event was probably more important than the performance, with the crowd thanking the GZA for a classic album and he appreciated all the support.

If you missed the show, go buy a copy, smoke a bong hit or ten, and put on some headphones and listen to it start to finish.

Let me start off by saying that it is really hard to write a preview of a band that refuses to be categorized let alone two of them. Lord. It is also hard when you realize that neither of a band’s two shows with “a string quartet, woodwinds, trumpets, and a harpist” will be taking place in your town because, quite frankly, I love that kind of stuff.

That said though, tonight’s Clinic w/ Shearwater show (Neumo’s), while hard to pigeonhole, seems to me to be the perfect kind of music to listen to after two days of frolicking in the sun. I thought about describing that in more detail, but you know what? Have a listen and let me know if you agree with me:

Clinic – Free Not Free
Shearwater – Rooks [mp3]

Okay now that you’re back, here are things you should know: Both bands are touring in support of their new albums Clinic’s recently released Do It and Shearwater’s upcoming Rook (June 08). Shearwater is a spin-off of Okkervil River. And in regards to Clinic, Pitchfork says, “it’s still inexplicable for a band this savvy about groove-minded freakouts that they’ve never recorded a song longer than four and a half minutes.” [pf] I don’t know about you, but this might be the strongest argument to love a band that I’ve ever heard. Immune to jammy-noodling? Sign me up!

Doors at 8, $13adv, 21+
img from Clinic’s press page.