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With my back against the large front window of Club 3 Degrees in downtown Minneapolis, I watch the snaky line of Alkaline Trio fans wrap around the corner of The Quest directly across the street. The heavy bass and kick drum from The Violet Burning’s sound check inside vibrate my cold, damp jacket pressed against the glass. It’s pretty miserable outside, but a handful of fans—including my good friend Paul and I and an eager, headbanded young man named Josh who’s been waiting since the fifth grade to see The Violet Burning live—wait patiently for the doors to open. A gracious staff member leans out and directs us into the entryway with specific directions to purchase our tickets, then form a line trailing down the steps to the basement coffeehouse portion of the club.

I part ways with Paul and am ushered to the office-like, second-floor backstage area to engage in perhaps the worst interview of my nearly decade-long free-lance writing career a gracious, kind but (tonight, anyway) close-lipped Michael Pritzl. [See the salvaged text of that interview elsewhere on www.tollbooth.org.]

When I return to the semi-packed main room, Paul is stationed at a tall coffee table in the center of the front-stage seating area. I scan the crowd around me and realize that, at 35, I’m probably the mean age of the group gathered to hear The Violet Burning and Kevin Max. My prime interest is in the former but upon hearing Max’s outstanding Northern Records release, The Imposter, I am intrigued by what is to come.

Fellow Nothern Records artist Brennan Strawn of Monarch, accompanied by his brother Aaron on drum kit, takes the stage with an acoustic guitar and strums through an impressive, mesmerizing set of stripped-down melodies carried on angelic vocal wings. The halo of lights hanging high above the stage accentuates Strawn’s heavenly stage presence.

After local worship band The Fuse finishes their heavy but pleasing set of Alice-In-Chainsish rock, the baker’s dozen of fans standing in front of the shoulder-high stage begins to multiply. This is partially due to the begging and baiting of Joey I.L.O., an annoying morning DJ of a comic who tries in vain to fire up the mature, mellow crowd. His offers of “free stuff” do motivate a few more fans to leave their seats. I.L.O. mentions that this is the first time Max, a four-time Grammy winner, is playing at Club 3 Degrees. He then offers up a prize to anyone who can name all 11 Violet Burning albums. Josh gives it an admirable try (with one correction yelled out by a guy from the table behind me) and walks away with a token freebie.

Darkness overtakes the stage in the form of the five-man ensemble that tonight is The Violet Burning: Michael Pritzl (guitar, vocals), Jason lord Mize (drums), Black Cherry (bass), and Chris Buelow and Ben Paskitti (guitars), all decked out in black T’s, black pants, black shoes, black hair (dyed and natural). Michael Pritzl sports a classic Velvet Underground T-shirt, which boosts his already-beefed-up indie rock cred…at least with me. The band plugs in, test strums, then huddles together with the soundman for a pre-set prayer.

“Gorgeous,” both the opening song and the sound that slowly swells to encompass the interior of Club 3 Degrees: the lights, the slouches, the sways…all gorgeous. The band keeps it retro and pull out “Low” from the brilliant and controversial self-titled disc. The band sounds MASSIVE. Pritzl impassioned vocals—dead-on every time I’ve seen him live—intertwine with distorted guitars, vibrating bass and thunderous drums. A few open-mouthed screams, upward eye contact, and theatrical hand gestures culminating in a harrowing pick slide round out the powerful presence of the song. Pritzl steps atop the huge bass drum and jumps down to signal the final chord.

Fast-forwarding ten (album) years, the bass rumbles with the pulsating drums to introduce “All I Want” from drop-dead. “Hang on, all my dreams are fading this time, all my love is…Will you carry me? You’re all I want. Hang on to me, all I want is you,” Pritzl pleads. The sentiment continues with “More,” which Pritzl earlier admitted is his favorite new live song. As Mize pounds out the tribal beat, Pritzl moves to the drum riser and sways in time. Black Cherry is bent in half, his classic Thunderbird bass nearly resting on the floor as he sways and slides his fingers up and down the fret board, ala Simon Gallup of The Cure. Buelow and Paskitti slouch too, creating a shifting wave of hunched worshippers. Their inward reflection and vertical mindset prompt one bald man standing in front of the stage to open wide his arms to join them…. “I’ve got nothing left to live for. No one else is staying, but you, always you. There is only you.” The rhythmic patterns continue when the vocals end, and Pritzl kneels in prayerful playing. There is humbleness in both his lyrics and his physical presence on stage.

All of the above aforementioned motions and emotions continue through three more drop-dead tunes, the thumping, ‘80’s-tinged “Rewind,” the beautiful bass of “The End Begins,” and the show-stopping prayer “Thousand Years” which moves the crowd to sing along, “Yeah, you’re my heart, you’re my  home.” Raised hands, tearful eyes, swirling lights. Amen.

Joey I.L.O. breaks the wonderfully worshipful mood with his boisterous goofiness. (Did he not feel what we all just experienced?) “So, was it worth it, Josh?!” he says, shoving a mike in the obviously soothed, awestruck young man. “Yes,” Josh replies softly with his hands still folded in front of him.

Brennan Strawn is back on stage, this time with a Fireglo Rickenbacker strapped on his back. He’s followed by other young, fresh band members, but Kevin Max is nowhere in sight. Once an old-time soulful prerecorded intro sample fills the place, Max saunters on stage with a Styrofoam coffee cup in his hand. Max is wearing jeans with an untucked, button-up shirt, tie and sport coat. Strawn strums the staccato intro to “The Imposter,” the title track off Max’s Euro-cool Northern Records album. I had high hopes for Max’s set based on his excellent record, and the instrumental effect was perfect. Max’s voice was a bit ragged to start, and he kept motioning for more vocals in the monitors. While his band fills the stage with movement and life, Max stands stoically at the mike with the coffee mug still in his hand.

“Sorry. I’m struggling,” Max admits after the opening song. “My throat is like an old car; it takes a while to warm up.” Max also notes that this is the seventh show in a row, and he’s been running on three hours of sleep.

The band launches into “Sanctuary,” and Max begins to take a few steps with the mike in one hand, his other now empty and open aside his head as he reaches his upper vocal register. There’s some life infused in his singing, but something is still lacking. Brennan is jerking and high-stepping, posing like a musical praying mantis with Rickenbacker held at odd angles. He’s impossible to ignore and interjects the eye appeal that Max is side-stepping.

“I’m starting to get there,” Max says after successfully hitting the high note that ends “Sanctuary.” He tells the crowd that this tour is a good way to get him out of his private retirement before totally quitting to write poetry full-time. He also mentions that his family, including his dad, is in the crowd.

“Confessional Booth” begins, and Max seems a little more enlivened but still like he’d really rather be somewhere else. On “I Need You, The End” Max finally finds his voice. (It takes four songs to “get there?”) But in the next breath, he tosses his “musicalness” aside and flips out his new book, P.O.E.T.R.Y., and reads a piece while the band provides cheesy, “Beat-era” hand drumming and dampened chords for background effect. Max makes up for the vocal boycott by showcasing his amazing range on the next three tunes: “What If I Stumble,” “Existence,” and the U2-influenced “Jumpstart Your Electric Heart.” He even pulls a Bono and jumps into the crowd, sitting
casually at a table to sing to a shocked couple enjoying the show from the safety of their chairs, the moment caught by several picture phones.

Max goes through the motions of the last handful of songs. He and the band sound tight and full, but Max’s spirit seems zapped, the crowd not the huge, pogo-sticking sea he was expecting, maybe.

Greg Adams