Benjamin Wick
In its inaugural years, Milwaukee’s annual Pablove benefit concerts packed its lineups with reunions of celebrated local acts, which gave each bill the feel of a special, one-off event. The problem with reunions, of course, is that eventually you run out of them. Now that nearly every prominent band from the city’s ’80s and ’90s alternative scene has already returned for a second bow, Pablove has been left to look elsewhere for headliners, at least until the year Citizen King decides to give it another go. For the pediatric cancer benefit’s sixth installment Saturday night at the Turner Hall Ballroom, organizers settled on an unexpected hook: cover bands, albeit ones of particular interest to Generation Xers weaned on underground rock.
At the top of the bill was Sons of The Silent Age, a David Bowie tribute project that covered glam rock’s greatest chameleon with almost devotional seriousness. On promotional material for the show, these headliners were billed as featuring “a very special appearance” from Garbage’s Shirley Manson, which much of the crowd optimistically interpreted to mean this was a Shirley Manson-fronted David Bowie tribute. That wasn’t the case. Instead, former Ministry player Chris Connelly played the man himself, squeezing into a white suit to lead lengthy, rigidly faithful versions of Bowie hits and deep cuts. Manson joined for just a handful of songs—too few, by any account—but they were the night’s strongest, especially her touching renditions of “Sorrow” and “Wild is the Wind,” which she introduced as “the hardest song I’ve ever sung in my life.” Both revealed a range and vulnerability that only rarely creeps into her ice-princess act with Garbage.
Much more lighthearted were the bill’s two Milwaukee cover bands, Salford Lads Club, a Smiths/Morrissey tribute, and Pleased To Meet Me, a celebration of The Replacements’ godly 1987 album. Where Salford Lads Club offered a designated Morrissey in local lookalike Marc Solheim, who also co-organized the event, Pleased To Meet Me took a more communal approach to Paul Westerberg and company, introducing new singers and players nearly every song. More than 20 musicians took part, representing more than a dozen Milwaukee bands, from Midnight Reruns to Hugh Bob and the Hustle, Juniper Tar and The Celebrated Workingman and on and on. The Replacements have long cast a deep influence over Milwaukee’s music scene, but if you needed evidence as to how much of mark they’ve left, this loving spectacle hit the point home beautifully.
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Wedged between those Milwaukee cover bands and the headliners was GGOOLLDD, whose electro-rock skewed refreshingly more youthful than anything else on the bill. They’re coming off of a 2014 that saw them expand their profile exponentially, but they worked for it: Their debut EP was one of last year’s finest, and their live show is glamorous like little else in the local scene, all flashing lights and rock-star bravado. Where Shirley Manson, the night’s one true star, limited her appearances to a few casual pop-ins, GGOOLLDD singer Margaret Butler embraced unabashed showmanship, dancing and poising in a glammy spandex wardrobe as if their whole set were an elaborate video shoot. On a bill mostly fixated on the past, they were a welcome glimpse of the future.
