PHILADELPHIA — “I need to go back home,” Dr. Dog’s Toby Leaman sang during the song “Station,” 10 tunes into his band’s set last Thursday at the Electric Factory.
The local-band-makes-good story is old hat, but when that homecoming show is sold out and the band’s first headlining gig in its city’s 3,000-person venue, there’s some value in the cliche.
Barreling through two hours of music, the Philadelphia band displayed a sense of joy and celebration in a set that drew heavily from its recently released “Shame, Shame” and 2008’s “Fate.” Both are tremendous albums, but live, their songs take on a certain sense of raucous energy that just can’t be captured on record.
Opening with “Shame’s” first track, “Stranger,” the band served early notice that the show would be very loud, but you could still make out some nice under-textures by guitarists Scott McMicken and Frank McElroy and keyboardist Zach Miller. A blue spotlight fixed its gaze on McMicken as he sang the opening strains of “I Only Wear Blue,” another “Shame” song, over grinding organ. “Let’s get on with it,” he sang as the track kicked in in earnest.
During “The Old Days,” one of “Fate’s” high points, a large dotted mural unfurled behind drummer Eric Slick while Leaman worked the front of the stage, clapping. “Army Of Ancients,” the poppy, danceable “Mirror, Mirror” and the balance of sinister hellfire and angelic vocal harmonies of “The Ark” were other early highlights.
The point that this band is another beast on stage than it is in the studio cannot be overstated, and it was driven home during “The Rabbit, the Bat, and the Reindeer,” as McMicken, Leaman and McElroy bounded all over the stage, seemingly buoyed by their music. McMicken sang, “No sticks no stones can break my bones like you can,” again utilizing a children’s rhyme, like in “Mirror, Mirror,” to get at greater adult truths.
The singsong psychedelia of “Unbearable Why,” the apocalyptic “Fate,” the minor-key fury of “The Girl” — the only pre-2008 song played to that point — and the “Shame, Shame” title song, with McElroy using a slide effect, helped close the set.
The juiced-up crowd got a six-song encore, including the modern Euro-funk of “Heart It Races,” “Die, Die, Die,” “My Friend” and “Oh No” from 2005’s “Easy Beat.”
It was a triumphant, epic performance, and besides some muddled sound, it did not disappoint.
Young band Deer Tick opened with an attention-getting mix of songs from 2009’s “Born On Flag Day,” like “Little White Lies,” and its upcoming “The Black Dirt Sessions,” as well as a punked-up cover of Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” and a cool version of ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses.”
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