Add in an earlier set by Tampa’s Sleepy Vikings and the next one from Washington’s Lonely Forest, and it was clearly going to take a mighty showing from Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s to prove that the show’s best act hadn’t already come and gone. Thankfully, Richard Edwards and his band were happy to oblige.
The group has somewhat reinvented themselves on their latest record – Buzzard – and they were happy to give their audience a healthy dose of their new look and sound. Despite having shed quite a few members, the six piece still put one of the hardest working sound engineers in Ybor – Fraggle – to the test, taking quite a few minutes to tweak their amps and mics to desired levels before finally launching into the new album’s fifth track, “Will You Love Me Forever.”
From the first bars on the song, it was evident that that meticulous mic and monitor checking had already paid off. Erik Kang’s lap steel and Edwards’ vocals were ringing clear through Crowbar’s PA, and the song – along with spirited takes of “Freak Flight Speed” and “New York City Hotel Blues” – made it clear that Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s had long abandoned the embellished orchestrations on Animal!/Not Animal and weren’t planning on looking back.
The arrangements were tight, the tone coming from the stage was thick, and there was no ambiguity surrounding the fact that this was a group of musicians uninterested in the past, but more focused on the open sonic highway they will inevitably explore onstage and on record from here on out.
“Birds,” – which Edwards told REAX is one of his favorite songs on Buzzard – did no justice to scattered reviews that portrayed the Margot frontman as an apathetic, aloof performer emotionlessly singing words onstage without any conviction. The pained look on his face and his pitch perfect falsetto revealed not a washed up singer sick of his creation, but a man on fire as he forcefully delivered the line “I am afraid that the whole world is closer to moral foreclosure.”
Still, if fans of old material feared a slathering of new tunes, the band did not disappoint. “A Children’s Crusade on Acid,” “Quiet As A Mouse,” and “Broadripple is Burning” drew lively cheers from the crowd and the latter even found those in attendance singing along with Edwards who performed the Not Animal cut almost acoustic, accompanied only by McGill on keyboards.
The nostalgic vibe continued on “Talking In Code” and the biggest cheers erupted when the band revisited “Skeleton Key.” The track (arguably Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s most popular song) still sounds amazing despite a scaled back band and the gorgeous organ splashes gracefully updated the cut which also included a joyous, almost country/bluegrass passage. But if “Skeleton Key” still wasn’t enough to satiate the his fans’ thirst for old material, then the evening’s obligatory encore should’ve sent them all home with smiles on their faces.
The three-song curtain call was devoid of Buzzard tracks and included a solo acoustic take on Animal!’s “My Baby (Shoots Her Mouth Off). Edwards even did “Bookworm” from the band’s debut – The Dust of Retreat – on request. The track found Kang exchanging nice violin passages with McGill on keys and Mr. Margot introduced the song with a simple explanation for why the band always plays well in this city: “Tampa,” he said with a grin on his face, “has always been a strange highlight for us.”
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s Setlist
01. Will You Love Me Forever
02. New York City Hotel Blues
03. Claws Off
04. A Children’s Crusade on Acid
05. Quiet as a Mouse
06. (Unknown)
07. Birds
08. Tiny Vampire Robot
09. Broadripple is Burning
10. Freak Flight Speed
11. Talking In Code
12. Skeleton Key
13. As Tall as Cliffs
14. My Baby (Shoots Her Mouth Off)
15. Dress Me Like A Clown
16. Bookworm
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