going feral for the gories in detroit

As a young adult, “that was a religious experience” was my go-to hyperbolic phrase about shows. It was an easy way to describe feeling overtaken and overwhelmed. 

It doesn’t really sound like something I’d say anymore. I’ve been to several punk shows in the past three years where I danced confidently on some carpe diem shit. I’ve walked to my car absolutely drenched in sweat and smiling like I’d just been handed three million dollars cash. None of those were “religious experiences;” just unforgettable nights. Maybe I’ve just become more critical about the live show experience, or maybe giving religion ownership over euphoria was baldly disingenuous in the first place.

Walking through the rain to my car behind Detroit’s Paris Bar on August 1, I was drenched in sweat, smiling like a maniac, and vibrating from adrenaline. For the first time in my life, I had witnessed the Gories. That teenaged go-to superlative swam around my head once again. Thing is, the lord never made me wonder if I was going to swoon and drop to the floor from sheer sweaty enthusiasm. That’s a distinction held by Mick Collins, Danny Kroha, and Peggy O’Neill.

Prior to Saturday, Gories were the loadbearing band on my bucket list. Every person who has ever told me about seeing them has watched me quietly deflate with jealousy, so when the band announced a weekend of hometown shows, I got a ticket without even knowing if I’d be able to go for sure. (I want to thank my family for wanting to hang out in Michigan this week.)

You ever walk into a cinderblock Detroit bar where budget rock is blasting on good speakers? It’s a good feeling. Hey, there’s Kyle from 208, Beej from TY, and Danny Kroha slinging merch. Three-quarters of Wesley and the Boys unwittingly greet me at the door; they made a road trip here specifically for this show. Saying what’s up to Shelley Salant was when it was confirmed: pretty much every great contemporary Detroit rock band was accounted for in the crowd. There were hot dogs being sold out back. I love Detroit so much.

Paris Bar was the perfect room for a gleefully loud and evil 208 set. Kyle, adorned in his uniform of “bare feet,” did that shit where he hit everyone in the room with a tractor beam stare while playing punishingly loud fuzz guitar. They played new stuff that sounded exceptional, and there was an infectious giddiness in their every move. “Let me hear ya say YEAH,” Kyle screamed, followed by about six more “YEAH”s. Shelby’s usually steely demeanor fell entirely apart during a sloppy and giggly Antonio-assisted cover of “Wild Thing.”

This was my second time seeing TY, which is an unbelievable treat if you get the chance. They’re an unbelievably tight band, in near-constant motion, and funny as hell. “Ride My Bike” ran nonstop into “Get Knocked Down,” they did “Nematode,” they covered Jimi Hendrix, Coneheads, and CCR. They’re a shit-eating grin incarnate. (I don’t think I’m only gushing because they shouted me out on mic at one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, but I do love the sound of my own name, that’s just neuroscience.)

At a show like this—in a tight room or bellied up to the bar or outside shoulder-to-shoulder with the smokers—everybody’s palpably buzzing on the same frequency. Those two opening sets would’ve ruled on their own merits, but they also contributed to that shared excitement. We were all here to see the Gories, including the six smiling maniacs who’d just taken the stage.

The best part about the Gories playing at a bar owned by John Szymanski (of the Hentchmen) and surrounded by friends is how easy the band seemed up there. As Martin Douglas really beautifully put it in his must-read Trick Bag appraisal of the Gories, they were a punk band founded on meager expectations. The best punk bands just make shit and see where it goes without broad ambition. They’re still that band. Danny Kroha’s response to raucous applause was to poke fun at Kyle and Lars. When all the young Detroit punks by the stage demanded “whammy” from Mick Collins’ guitar, he replied, “Whammy bar? That’s what you wanted? That’s what you paid 46 bucks for??”

I paid $40 because I thought I knew how powerful and overwhelming the Gories’ stomp would hit at a small bar. I didn’t know; I couldn’t have. Kroha performed with his entire body, trading between authoritative fuzz rhythm hooks and iconic leads with Collins. O’Neill, deadpan and thunderous, was fucking transfixing. What are you supposed to do when those garage, blues, and Bo Diddley beats land in your chest? You move your feet and shake your nonexistent ass on impulse even though everyone’s practically standing on top of each other. The Gories are a rhythm and blues band, and if the rhythm doesn’t do something to your equilibrium in a sweaty bar on their home turf, you’re either or a corpse or you’re stupid. Maybe you’re a stupid corpse.

They played “Feral,” and somewhere in the process of screaming and dancing, my eyes rolled back and I briefly wondered if I’d faint. (I didn’t. My poet mother-in-law wondered if I’d experienced Stendhal syndrome.) There were a couple moments where Collins and Kroha and O’Neill faced each other in this power stance that’s probably been in their arsenal for the band’s entire 40 years. Collins’ amp started to act up, but nobody gave a fuck. Why would we? The guitar sound was dirty, the vibe was unparalleled, and when “Nitroglycerin” hit in the encore, all we could do was collectively lose it. 

The bar was filled with people I usually would’ve wanted to talk to about what had just occurred, but with a scrambled brain and little cartoon birdies floating around my head, instead I walked directly to my car for a fruitless attempt to process what had just happened. Nights like that don’t come around very often. Sometimes you’ve got to let them sit.

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