The Polyphonic Spree @ The Majestic Theater July 7, 2007

By Daniel Johnson
Jul 11, 2007

The Polyphonic Spree certainly seem to be feeling it. "It" being a peppy, rabid enthusiasm bordering on maniacal. After airing John Lennon's "Gimme The Truth," the 24-piece Dallas indie-harmonic emerged without their trademark cult robes, reinventing themselves in black fatigues. The message was clear - the flower children had found militancy in their politics.

The half-capacity crowd was then aurally assaulted from the set's opening to end by a band determined to bludgeon the audience with joy and a sound system that couldn't keep up. It was like those intercom messages in airport terminals; blaring and indistinct.

You'd have to be a cynical bastard to feel that all the confetti, strobe lights, and go-go dancers were nothing more than a commercial for The Polyphonic Spree; so that nobody could talk about their show afterward without inadvertently promoting the spectacle.

I mean, they looked so inappropriately peppy up there you'd have to be jaded indeed to think they remind you of the someone who's dancing a little too hard so that their ex will see them and think they're having a great time.

In fact, your heart would have to be sculpted from ice to notice, in the middle of all the Technicolor bombast and fist pumping, that frontman Tim DeLaughter is completely undercutting the collective effect of the uniforms with fake conducting moves that do nothing to direct the band and only serve as a constant reminder that it is he that has made all this pomp and circumstance possible.

And when the Spree perform Nirvana's "Lithium" during an encore, you'd have to have barnacles growing on your soul to see Cobain's ADD lyrics about numbness from cultural saturation as fitting and ironic for a band who's emotional grandstanding comes off as tapping for a vein of feeling on the arms of stimulation junkies.