The Residents continue to “hold up the underground since 1972” with an amazing multi-sensory, one-of-a-kind, genre-busting performance.
Sunday, April 2 saw the arrival of the legendary The Residents in Carrboro, NC. The Faceless Forever/Dog Stab! Tour, originally scheduled for 2020 but canceled due to the pandemic, is a delayed 50th-anniversary celebration for the band and a delayed tour for their most recent record, Metal, Meat & Bone. The planned setlist for the evening focused on songs from their latest album plus their 1978 iconic album Duck Stab!
The Residents interweave sight and sound for a truly unique experience that absorbs the audience into the performance. Like mousetraps awaiting to secure their prey, the floor of the Cat’s Cradle venue was full of chairs in neat rows for a seated and fully attentive performance. Even those only casually familiar with the band knew the evening would be more akin to a dramatic performance than a rock concert. Nearly everyone in attendance remained silent and seated for the entire performance, a very unusual sight for a venue packed with dancing people on most other nights.
Perfectly on time at the top of the hour, The Residents quietly entered a dimly lit stage wearing head-to-toe costumes that continued to protect their anonymity after so many years of public performance. Adorned in matching eyeball-laden suits, fedora hats, and eerie head masks that would make Jack Skellington stop and pause, each band member was trackable in the darkness by two small LED lights mounted on both sides of eyeglasses. A far more modern and stylish dress than the enormous eyeball and top hat headpiece worn in the past.
This lineup of “The Real Residents” are known only as “Tyrone” on vocals, “Eekie” on guitar, “Erkie” on keyboards, and “Cha Cha” on drums and percussion. The fifth artist on stage was a small, circular video screen in the center of the stage backdrop on which video ranging from old footage from The Residents’ scrapped film projects, digital 3D art, and countless random black and white surreal and obscure cartoon-like clips played.
The stage lights were simply set, changing between lemon, lime, and strawberry-flavored hues and adding just enough activity on stage to offset the motionless band. Only Tyrone, in between blasting out lyrics, displayed any movement about the stage. Playing for 90 minutes, the band briefly waved hello while entering the stage and took a bow at the end of the show, which encompassed the entirety of their audience interaction. The Residents were part of the artwork. They were synonymous with the sound and vision the band transmitted to the audience and any interpersonal interaction would have broken their singularity with their art form. The mostly older audience hardly cared about pleasantries and feasted gloriously on a wonderful setlist complimented with unpredictable video clips wandering down The Residents’ memory lane.
The Residents are classified as avant-garde or experimental but their music transcends rock, punk, metal, and pop. The setlist included “Bach Is Dead,” “Blue Rosebuds,” and “Laughing Song” from Duck Stab! plus “Die Die Die” and “She Called Me Doggie” from Metal, Meat & Bone: The Songs of Dyin’ Dog. Amazingly, The Residents included at least one song from twelve different albums in their discography plus a Hank Williams With His Drifting Cowboys cover, making their setlist truly career-spanning.
The impact of The Residents on modern art cannot be understated. Fearless, a touch insane, and viciously clever, The Residents delivered a show only they can perform. Based on audience reaction, The Residents delivered exactly what was hoped for. With over 60 albums and 10 world tours on their resume, The Residents continue to produce wildly entertaining and boundary-exceeding performance art as well as ever.
