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There are plenty of reasons why Halloween is, objectively speaking, the best holiday. It’s relatively less stressful, less expensive and less burdened with expectations than other special occasions while simultaneously celebrating what’s really important in life, like eating candy and watching scary movies. But perhaps the biggest edge All Hallow’s Eve has is that there’s always plenty of kick-ass shows going on. Looking at the concert calendar around Christmas is a depressing endeavor, but the end of October is an embarrassment of riches, and this year there were few more impressive options than Friday night’s stacked bill at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn.
Though the show didn’t technically take place on the 31st, the Halloween spirit was most certainly in the air as the bar began to fill with ghosts, goblins and obligatory homages to current cultural phenomena (didn’t see a single Trump though, go figure). Warming up this undead audience was Bleach Athletixx, a new project led by Max Holiday, which trades in a jangly, subtly grungy brand of post-punk pop. It’s an original, pleasingly eclectic sound, but it’s Holiday’s seemingly effortless knack for catchy songcraft, of the sort demonstrated by their most recent single “American Made Motorcycle,” that really brings it all together.
Soon after Bleach Athletixx’s all-too-short set got things off on the right foot, NO/NO stepped in to keep the party going. Seeing them back to back and in quick succession made for a fairly fluid transition thanks to the two group’s shared penchant for keyboards and strong hooks, although NO/NO’s particular spin on similar elements results in a more polished, cinematic style of synthpop. A reliable live band, their brief performance was cursed with a few annoying technical difficulties, resulting in an unfortunately lopsided mix, but thankfully songs like “Red Flag” can easily stand up to a little abuse.
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Next up was classic-rockers Platinum Boys, who were the only act to commit to a group costume, trading in their denim vests to become “the Platinum Family Band,” an unsettling nuclear unit complete with a mother, a father, a bouncing baby boy and even a trusty dog keeping time behind the drums. It was clearly designed for maximum silliness, but beyond the novelty of watching a grown man in a diaper shredding on a guitar they also delivered a typically fist-pumping set, one that included promising selections from an in-the-works EP and a crowd-pleasing take on the Eagles’ “Already Gone.”
Then came time for the evening’s seasonally appropriate headliner, Chicago stoner thrash kings Oozing Wound. While their music is beyond heavy and littered with horrific imagery, it’s also disarmingly humorous and smartly constructed, making it the ideal thing to headbang to in honor of the holiday (or any other time of the year for that matter). Drawing deeply from their latest Thrill Jockey Records LP, last year’s exceptional Earth Suck, their set came on strong and never took its foot off the gas; closing out an already satisfying show on an intensely high note. If only every holiday was Halloween.
