I saw Man Man At The Spiegeltent

Tenth Man Man show in about a year. They keep getting better. Really. The show was supposed to start around midnight, but actually started sometime after, because the Spiegeltent had hosted one of their burlesque shows just before. Cover was $15, and there was no opening bands, but the line still stretched down the length of the Southstreet Seaport pier.

Inside people were packed, I saw My Brightest Diamond there with about 50 other people; Saturday night there must have been 200 inside the circular tent. It’s a running joke with me, how many times can I possibly see Man Man before I’m bored. But each set is different; each song gets tighter and looser at the same time. Plus, noticing these things take time, and about ten shows.

Man Man played more new songs than I’ve heard at previous shows. And though I couldn’t name any of them, they sounded a little different from the songs off Six Demon Bag they seemed less grounded in Honus’ Rhodes and more in squiggly electronic flourishes.

Man Man ended the show with “Ice Dogs,” as usual. Not as usual, the audience kept singing the song’s fade-into-forever ending, clapping and repeating, “This heart won’t die / and this ship won’t die” until they began speeding it up as per some anonymous directive from the center of the crowd. Man Man came back out to play “Van Helsing Boombox,” my favorite Man Man song, but Honus’ least favorite.
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