Iceage have certainly drummed up a lot of attention this summer. Only shortly after graduating from high school, these teenagers from Denmark made their U.S. debut during Brooklyn’s Northside Festival. Floating high on glowing live reviews, the band had the room packed with sweaty punk rock boys when they returned to New York at Mercury Lounge last night.
Before you go to an Iceage show, you have to decide how old you are, and this may have nothing to do with your actual age. Less than a minute into the feedback heavy set, the audience visibly divided itself into the aggressive young guns in the circle pit and the older spectators in the back of the room. As one of the spectators who preferred to end the night with my nose intact, I was in the back, which unfortunately means that I missed some of the show’s true intensity.
Iceage’s debut album New Brigade is raw and uninhibited, but I was too busy trying to protect myself (by standing behind the biggest guy I could find) to get a sense of that magic during the set. The moments when I was captured by the music were cut short by making sure I wasn’t trampled — and these moments were few and far between since Iceage only played for about 20 minutes.
Maybe it’s not about the music, though. The refreshing thing about punk rock is that anything goes. It’s an aggressive outlet, both for the band and the audience. Maybe Iceage’s true talent is not necessarily in creating memorable songs, but in getting a group of people excited about paying $12 to throw each other around for a while. Perhaps the rest of us should just get out of their way.
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