Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now Played Mercury Lounge 5/12

On Wednesday night I headed to Mercury Lounge to check out Eddie Argos' new band, EWITFRN (that's way easier). Eddie is the front man for Art Brut and being a fan I was pretty interested to hear the new stuff. I hadn't yet listened to anything from the band so I went in with a blank slate not knowing what to expect.

I got to the show a little bit early and caught about half of Murder Mystery's set. To be honest I just did not dig these cats. The chick singer had a good rapport with the crowd, which was rather large, but the music just wasn't doing it for me.

While they were on Eddie and his bandmates were hanging in the back chatting with some fans. Eddie Argos is a very tall man, I was not expecting that at all. Once MM cleared off French Resistance headed backstage for a few and then took the stage.

They attempted to make a grand entrance with the French national anthem playing but the sampler crapped out and the chick in the band had to run on stage to fix it. It was a comical start to a very comical set. Once the band made their not so grand entrance Eddie started explaining the concept of the band. As he pointed out it was a concept band after all.

Apparently, all of their songs are reactions, replies and rebuttals to other songs. For example they played a tune called "Billie's Genes," which is about how Eddie is the love child of Michael Jackson and Billie Jean. It was hysterical and not a bad jam either.

Overall the tunes were way more dancey than I was expecting based on Art Brut's stuff but the humor was there ten-fold. Eddie Argos is undoubtedly the funniest and most charismatic front man in rock. This makes any band he's in an instant hit. Despite the fact that he can't, nor even bothers to attempt, to actually sing. He doesn't need to and it doesn't matter at all. The crowd loves this dude and for good reason. The music was good, the lyrics were great but the between song banter was by far the best part. Vive le Eddie Argos! Vive le France!

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