Spending Wednesday with The Drums

With wavy and electric energy, The Drums took the stage at the Metro Chicago on May 1. The indie pop front man, Jonathan Pierce, known as The Drums played a 14-song set with a three-song encore. Since having a falling out with the rest of his bandmates in 2017, Jonny Pierce has been performing as The Drums with travel bands, and successfully. With tunes that sound familiar, like bands such as The Smiths or The Beach Boys, The Drums new-age indie tunes are timeless.

THE DRUMS | PHOTOGRAPHED BY MANUEL VELASCO

Opening with “Days,” the second track off their 2011 album Portamento. The surf rock vibes only grew from there. The song “Best Friend,” from their 2010 self-titled album was next, followed by the much newer song, “Heart Basel” from Pierces totally solo album, “Abysmal Thoughts.”

The crowd stayed fairly mellow throughout the show, swaying to the beachy-rock tunes. With five albums released since the band’s debut in 2010, it was a throw-up to which songs he would play next. Only five songs of the 17 played were from Pierces latest 2019 album, “Brutalism.” With this new release, Pierce takes a more electropop direction with his songs, introducing flares of influence from bands such as New Order or even Björk. The new album shows the individual style and growth of Pierce himself, who although has written and been the mastermind of The Drums albums, had never truly been working on his own until this point. The album is truly a burst of light and opened box of the high-energy side of Pierce that we haven’t been able to see in years past.

The Drums show at The Metro ended with the Beach Fossils-esque song, “Blood Under My Belt.” The perfect jiving, foot tapping, outro left The Metro filled with smiling faces and high energy as Pierce left the stage.

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