Deerhunter, you're not getting any younger

When I first saw the new lineup to go with this slightly more loping live Deerhunter, I was knee-jerkingly skeptical. This was during the summer, at McCarren pool. Maybe it was the cheerleader outfit or the fire engine red Stratocaster that seemed gimmicky, because it couldn't have been her confident performance, but I wasn't ready to see Whitney Petty in place of Colin Mee. Finally I came upon my conclusion, alluded to above, that Deerhunter approached middle age sometime during the intermission between departure of their former guitarist and the release of Microcastle. This was not their new guitarist's fault. If anything, she seemed the most ready to hop around, ending both sets I've seen her play with a headstand.

But the boys didn't seem to want to play last summer. Even musically, there wasn't really an effort to replicate the nuanced textures of their recently leaked album, so much as a rote reproduction of chord changes and softly reverbed vocals. It was really hot out, after all.

Last night, it looked as if Bradford Cox may have borrowed Petty's red guitar, and that they'd refined the wash of guitar chords they'd since played on both a headlining tour and as an opener for Trent Reznor.

Still, I couldn't help wondering if the edge had departed with their last lineup. It was, after all, Colin Mee who'd been the butt (or the face) of Bradford Cox's blow job episode, a gimmick of a much more excessive order than either a cheerleader outfit or even the strange faceplant Cox landed into Petty's  crotch in the midst of her closing headstand last night.

How did the songs sound? While B. Cox called it "sorta Guitar Center, right?", it was at least more sophisticated than the impossibly echoing acoustic nightmare at McCarren. Cox started up in the mix, and notched his amp even higher mid-set. And while I strained to hear the light wash that Lockett Pundt stoically provides (without a single smirk), and appreciated Petty's confident support, it was more fun to watch Josh Fauver and Moses Archuleta, who seemed more locked in and relaxed than ever. It was like we were witnessing a newfound serenity, an equilibrium, not just in the simmering balance between a solid, pocketed rock band and their ostentatious fronting guitarist (with the pretty voice), but also between the tolerant band members and their ostentatious fronting talker (who spent a few minutes between more than one song intimately conversing as fluidly as if one on one, with the entire audience).

And on that note, the "state" of the band and its spokesperson, it seemed important not to forget that the last place Deerhunter had been was Alabama, two days earlier, and that this was their last announced show until a European tour in 2009. What were they doing up here? If they drove, it was a long two day haul, that may have explained the sort of sleepy pace of their performance. But this was the "Gummy Awards," Stereogum's annual award review. My assumption is that Stereogum/Buzznet/Universal flew them up from Atlanta, and that to the band, this was a sort of bizarre one-off. At one point Cox murmured how "Stereogum is a great website, right?" But not before trailing of with an oddly placed "...and Pitchfork..." Earlier, he'd mumbled, jokingly, about how unpredictable things can be: "who knew, three weeks ago, that I'd be here playing?"

And if my inner critic wanted to see the Sturm und Drang of Deerhunter's past, no one seemed more aware of the oddity of the particular place and time than Bradford Cox. Here he was, closing for two buzz bands with more ties to the indie media industry than to the underground, a place where the sweaty progression towards recognition started for Deerhunter with a roughshod 7" and a dead band member. On performing a particular song, he coyly suggested that "we'd have to wait 'til Christmas for that one," and that maybe we could download it with "our iTunes gift card, sponsored by Becks, or Insound, or something," which was funny to those present (and awkward to others), since Insound had set up a giveaway at the show. Maybe he got a gift card with his plane ticket? If so, go Stereogum! ...And Pitchfork.