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Philidelphia’s genre bending indie rockers mewithoutYou consists of four members, but of those four the only name you truly need to familiarize yourself with is that of frontman Aaron Weiss. While the other three members of the band could fit into just about any other growing stale categorization of indie rock music, Aaron’s completely original vocal style and unparalleled emotional output indubitably sets mewithoutYou apart from their countless peers.
Recently, I had the chance to catch Aaron and the band on their current tour as they made a stop in Tulsa, OK at the new club, The Marquee. Located in the quaint antiquity of the historic Brady District, The Marquee proved to be a surprisingly charming location for the intimate show.
Once mewithoutYou took the stage, the unpredictably healthy sized crowd stood in attention. Aaron strummed his battle-worn acoustic guitar and meekly whispered out the first of three sing-along “Spider” songs off of the band’s newest album Brother, Sister. The lively crowd sang back in unison, just as they would with the other two “Spider” songs as they made their way into the set list. As the opening song wound down, the rest of mewithoutYou broke into action; seamlessly segueing into the heavier “Torches Together,” the grand performance was underway.
Under normal circumstances, at a normal concert, my eyes will typically wonder over to the other band members that are playing at a show rather than just directing my attention on the vocalist alone; but not on this night. No, on this night my eyes were glued to Mr. Aaron Weiss. The reason being is that to me, to turn away from Aaron was to miss an integral piece of a stunning artistic performance. I could plainly see that once Weiss broke into his signature dance moves upon the opening riffs of “Torches Together,” that this man was doing much more than just going through the motions of another night’s performance.
As Aaron stepped up to the microphone to shout out the opening lines of the song, his expressions clearly pointed to the fact that the music was sincerely moving him. And when he fumbled with the opening line a bit, it wasn’t as if it was because of a lack of practice, it seemed much more due to the fact that he was so intensely involved with the music around him that he almost forgot that it was his job to sing.
More so than with any other live performer I’ve ever seen, Aaron Weiss lives out every moment of his utterly captivating performances. They’re not always technically sound, but they are always emotionally moving. Aaron sings each word of his vividly griping poetry as if it was the last time he would ever have the chance to. The performance that night wasn’t just a simple copy of the songs heard on the band’s CD, but rather each song was alive and breathing.
He changed the lyrics of certain songs to make them more relevant to his current situation; he sang out joyful songs in an utmost jubilant manner and shouted out gloomy songs as if he were being forced to relive that depressing part of his life all over again. He moved and he clapped, he danced and he screamed, he played the accordion and the trumpet. He gave us all an unquestionably grand performance.
At this point I’d like to apologize to the other fine members of mewithoutYou whom I’ve done nothing but ignore thus far. But seriously, even you three must realize what an odd and wonderful talent you have in your midst. Personally, I believe that just Aaron and his acoustic guitar would have been worth the price of admission, and oddly enough that’s actually what took place during the night’s encore. Aaron and his brother Michael being the only two members of the band to actually came back out on to the stage.
That brings me to the point of stopping the utter glorification of the show so that I can point out some its imperfections. The ‘90s rock themed opening band and the afro-beat experimental group that followed were both interesting, but not entirely memorable opening acts. And once the opening band’s lead vocalist took it upon himself to provide backing vocals for mewithoutYou, it got personal. His deep post-grunge type snarl did not mesh well at all with the songs he attempted to sing backup on, even going as far as doing whatever he could to ruin the band’s final number, “In a Sweater Poorly Knit.” Also the lack of a proper encore, as I mentioned earlier, was both odd and upsetting considering the expectations of the fully supportive crowd.
As Aaron hummed out the last song of his solo encore, the crowd stared hypnotized at the brutally honest performer in front of them. They all knew what I knew, that they had just witnessed one of the most intimate and sincerely moving concerts they would ever have the privilege of attending. As he bid us all farewell, his shy smile spread across his face, it seemed almost impossible that he would ever again exert as much raw emotion onto a stage as he just did in front of us. And yet we all knew that the very next night mewithoutYou would inevitably be in another club, leaving another gathering of people utterly stunned by yet another grand performance.
All photographs taken by Jason Bergman.
