Cage the Elephant at the Knit

I saw a coworker after Cage the Elephant wrapped up their show last night at the Knitting Factory. He called them his favorite band and said the show was “amazing.”

Cage the Elephant is not my favorite band, but I’ve got to agree with him about the concert.

The alternative rock band from Kentucky only has one studio album (a self-titled released in 2008), so the main set was a quick 40 minutes, but the energy was relentless. Most of that effort goes into instrumentation but singer Matt Shultz bobs and shakes without ceasing, appearing on the verge of a breakdown.

At least that’s what I observed early in the show. Near the end, after they’d already played second single “Back Against the Wall” and were coming up on finale “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” he seemed like he might actually be going a little crazy — surfing into the crowd and convulsing while still singing at least 75 percent of the lyrics.

Simply put, it was a good show. Even if you’d never heard Cage the Elephant’s music but have just a smidge of affection for rock, you would have been entertained.

They came back for a two-song intermission that further upped the ante, in two very different ways.

The first number was new single “In One Ear,” and they just rocked the full crowd’s faces with it.

But I have no idea what the second one was. This is partly because Cage the Elephant’s music style (especially live) is “loose,” “rough and tumble” and other clichés of that sort.

But Shultz also was getting a second wind. He climbed the ledge on stage right and actually dove down into the crowd. After landing that, he managed to stand on top of the crowd like Jesus on the Sea of Galilee and belt out some more lines. They were in comprehensible but, seriously, who cares?

I missed Cage the Elephant when they came to Vixens in August, back when they might still have been considered a one-hit alternative wonder. 

That show was also on a weeknight, and I could see the Knit having sold out if it had been booked on a weekend.

A sophomore album should be out later in 2010, so maybe they'll be back again within a year.