We Are Scientists Livestream

We Are Scientists livestreamed their Super Bowl Sunday Seattle show....
We Are Scientists : Livestream
We Are Scientists : Livestream

Somehow, there’s (still) a global pandemic going on, threats of a massive land war in Europe – but also the Olympics & even the Super Bowl. There are massive, shut-down-the-capital-and-the-border protests in – Canada? Donald Trump may be going to jail – and/or end democracy as we know it. We all don’t know whether to hide or to party, just that we need something reliable, someone reliable, so it was the perfect time to catch a livestream from indie rock vets We Are Scientists, who brought their good & great times to Seattle’s Madame Lou’s on Sunday, February 13th, and to the world via new livestream portal Flymachine.

Admittedly, it was hardly perfect timing, coming on Super Bowl Sunday, and was a West Coast show, so for fans in, say, WAS’ own New York City, their set began after midnight (and into the next morning for their large U.K. fanbase). Flymachine, the umpteenth new livestream portal (kind of late in the game to start up now…), did deliver nice multi-camera work, including from the sides of the stage, though not the front, but that let the fans who were there in person up to the lip of the stage. In lieu of a general text chat, Flymachine has a video chat function for fans, both a public room and private ones, but between retrograde tech & his appearance reflecting having not been out of the house much, your correspondent didn’t take part in that.

We Are Scientists are touring behind Huffy (QRO review), their pandemic-delayed record and its pandemic-delayed tour. They’ve already done Europe and their NYC home (QRO photos), and are definite tour vets. They know what to say in any given city, like praising Seattle’s coffee but denigrating its weather – when they weren’t arguing over the phrase, “Sacré Bleu!” We Are Scientists shows are known for their great banter between singer/guitar Keith Murray & singer/bassist Chris Cain (QRO interview with both), off-the-cuff humor between the two old friends, and this show was no exception. Topics outside of coffee talk En Francais included the number of people watching the livestream (the debate was between, “At a minimum, couple hundred thousand” from Cain, while Murray countered with “A mill-five,” but, “Those numbers haven’t been crunched yet, so don’t quote me on that…”), Spiderman’s lesson of ‘great power, great responsibility’ (with regards to their “2.5 million” watchers) to call out the “haters & fakers” to “repent,” risking their lives “more than the CDC recommends” in Puget Sound, and more. After longtime closing number “After Hours”, Cain pointed out that it was the end of their main set, where they usually give a speech about not leaving & coming back for an encore, but they, “Got not time for pageantry,” though Murray ended up pointing out that they actually were giving that no encore break speech.

Huffy songs included opening with the album’s own opener, “You’ve Lost Your Shit”, as well as “Sentimental Education” and killer singles “Contact High” (QRO review) & “I Cut My Own Hair” (QRO review), plus the Cain-sung “Bought Myself a Grave” (which even live does include the extended distortion breakdown afterwards). For it being Huffy’s tour, the record didn’t dominate the setlist like usual first-tour-of-new-album tours, perhaps due to the band’s long time away from touring pushing them to widen their scope (they’ve also got a boatload of great albums & songs to pick from). Indeed, prior record Megaplex got three songs, “One In, One Out” and back-to-back “KIT” & “Your Light Has Changed” – usually the newest-album-but-one gets the short shrift. And of course, there were the old classics, such as With Love and Squalor’s “It’s a Hit” & “This Scene Is Dead”, or “Rules Don’t Stop” & “Nice Guys” from Barbara (QRO review).

Who knows what the future holds (as of this writing, Putin hasn’t invaded Ukraine & Trump isn’t in jail), so enjoy what you can, when you can, how you can, like a reliable favorite on a livestream.

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