Roy Jurgens on April 19th, 2019

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Every year, acclaimed indie darlings buried down the Coachella undercard venture west to Los Angeles to do club and theater shows. Earlier this week, two such acts, Shame and Iceage, performed to a rapturous and rowdy Roxy crowd that desired much more than the mid-afternoon taster sets the festivals offered them. Given the lack of relevant guitar bands on this year’s bill, having two of the best on one stage was a treat.

Denmark isn’t a snarky place, and Danes aren’t a particularly snarky folk, in fact, they sport a well-known reputation for being disarmingly friendly. This is why Copenhagen’s fave sullen sons, Iceage, are such a refreshing murderer of stereotypes. Playing a set heavy on songs from their critically acclaimed 2018 release “Beyondless,” they lit a slow flame that soon got out of control. Shades of ’90s grunge emerge from their post-punk label, as their singles “Catch It” and “Pain Killer” (from 2018’s release “Beyondless”) recall a helping of Dinosaur Jr. along with a nice dollop of Mr. Cave. Impish smiles emerge despite their moody, black-and-white German art film set in technicolor. Iceage want so badly to brood, but, dammit, this band thing is just a bit too much fun. 

Frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt is all cheekbones and sass. Watching him perform is like watching someone wrestling with a messiah complex, powerfully drawn towards stardom that he so smugly denies a desire for. This makes for an intoxicating stage presence. Part of rock ’n’ roll has always been about wrestling with demons, and Rønnenfelt’s are putting up a good fight. Guitarist Johan Surballe Wieth, the only true extrovert in the band, plays shoegaze all wrong, and that’s a great thing. Bassist Jakob Tvilling Pless and drummer Dan Kjær Nielsen hold the hot mess together. Iceage have perfected that magical dance between structure and chaos, falling apart just enough for the loose ends to tangle and to get pulled back together.

South London’s Shame is a whole other kettle of fish. These louts came to be heard, even if they’re internally battling the things they’re saying. Lead bawler Charlie Steen’s style is clearly in your face, a latter reboot of the English punk/football hooligan frontmen that spit across stages decades before him. Shame doesn’t care about being important, which is precisely why they will be. They don’t want to be rockstars or to be revered. This quintet is not concerned with cool detachment. No, they came to party and you’re invited.

This is music you’d listen to while furiously downing Buckfast with a load of chips and gravy, if we had Buckfast and chips and gravy. The songs, unspectacular and workmanlike, are all things we’ve heard before. But they are wrapped up in such joy and frenzy they take on a sense of “one -for-all” collectivism about them, elevating them above their contemporaries. This five-piece is white-hot live, for more furious on stage than their widely praised post-punk record, 2018’s “Songs of Praise,” would have you believe. 

These lads are too young to recall Thatcher or the gray woes of post-war England. They’ve been raised in a multicultural Europe, and now threatened by Brexit, their message of unity is most relevant. Early in the set, Steen made a statement that anyone being abused or mistreated should come forward or seek out security, that this sort of behavior was unwelcome. This is the new punk rock, ferocious, hypnotic, and sweaty, but empathic and cuddly as well. The spiraling freneticism of Fugazi, the angular throb of Gang of Four and the mad dog barking of Joe Strummer all take their bows here. Gritty and sardonic, devil may care, boots in the air, Shame are mad cunts, meant in the most endearing definition of that word, of course. 

Shame and Iceage return to Coachella this weekend for sets Saturday and Sunday, respectively, both in the Sonora Tent.

Photos and recap by Roy Jurgens