Face To Face, No Motiv

It is often said that the true measure of a band is not how many albums they sell or how good they can sound in the studio, rather it’s the strength of a band’s live show that ultimately determines their true merit. If this is the case, then Friday night’s show only served to reinforce what many in attendance already knew: Face To Face is truly a great band.
This being my inaugural experience inside CSU Chico’s new auditorium, I was immediately struck by its stark beauty; it's definitely a hell of a lot better place to have a show than the Rose Garden. Hats off to whoever authorized the $500 million it probably took to build the place. It's nice to see tax dollars at work building places to have punk shows. Also, hats off to AS Presents for booking Face To Face. In a schedule rife with hippie rock and noodle bands, it's nice to see that someone had the balls to book a punk band. And it seemed to have been a good bet; as No Motiv took the stage the venue seemed to be filling up.
Hailing from Oxnard, No Motiv plays a peculiar brand of music. Too slow to be punk (except for a couple of songs), too fast to be emo, too emo to be rock, too rock to be indie, No Motiv is just simply a very good band. They played selections off of their new full length, Diagram for Healing, and to my delight, a good number of songs from their old album, And the Sadness Prevails. No Motiv, as always, put on a solid show and did their best to get the crowd juiced for Face To Face.
To this end, the crowd did not need a whole lot of assistance. Face to Face came on stage to a heartfelt roar. From beginning to end, those who did not know the words to every song and sing them at the top of their lungs were the definite minority in the crowd.
Now they are officially a three-piece (which they were, unofficially, in their last Chico show), Face To Face did not suffer from the lack of a guitarist. In fact, the stripped down sound actually seemed to augment the depth of the songs, adding an extra edge to them. This was most readily apparent on songs that appeared on their ’97 live release (which was a selection of songs from their first three albums, recorded live). These songs sounded none the worse for wear, four years and one guitarist later, and it was this album, that seemed to constitute the majority of the set, much to the agreement of the crowd.
Being the case that Face to Face were not officially on tour (they drove up from L.A. just to play the show) the band was in an unusually playful mood, mocking themselves, the audience, and a certain writer (uh, no names need to be mentioned…). This playfulness also carried over into the set, which ended up being longer than most had expected, and included basically any song that any one wanted to hear off of any album. The crowd appreciated this greatly, and showed their appreciation in spades, throwing themselves with reckless abandon into the arms of the security guards and screaming lyrics until their voices quit. This did not go unnoticed by the band, who promised to “make Chico one of our regular stops.” We can only hope.
– Daniel Taylor
– Photos by Alyssa Starkey

Bookmark:

Comments down for maintenance.