The Nile Theater was visibly steaming in the summer heat as hundreds of facepainted fans crammed into the space for The Garden’s latest visit to the Valley. The Bootleg Tour sold out the historic venue, bringing Her New Knife along for one crazy ride on a Wednesday night.
The classical music tinkling over the speakers faded away as Her New Knife took the stage with a brief nod at the crowd before launching into a loud shoegaze set that got the people moving early. The middle of the floor teemed with contained chaos as fans nodded along to “vitamin beauty” and “debris star”. The band spoke very little between songs, preferring to let their set blend together as they made the most of their time onstage. The crowd was sufficiently warmed up- and packed tight- as Her New Knife’s final crashing outro escorted them offstage and into the welcoming presence of many new fans.
Arizona has consistently shown up for The Garden and a profoundly sweaty mass of humanity kept that streak alive as the SoCal sibling duo of Wyatt and Fletcher Shears emerged. From the first riff of “Filthy Rabbit Hole”, the floor turned into one roiling mess of people, moshing with abandon to the group’s tumultuous sound. The mass mosh turned into bodies flying onto and off of the stage as the band simply kept playing songs like “Bootleg” and “The Mess”. Drummer Fletcher Shears stepped out from behind his kit to perform a series of acrobatics, including tumbling across the stage and leaping from his kick drum in time with Wyatt’s intense vocals.
The entire venue was slick with sweat at this point, gasping for air to sing along to the remainder of the band’s set- and they gave the rest of the night everything they had. A significant portion of the set was devoted to the band’s latest album, but they made sure to throw in plenty of fan favorites like “Haunted House on Zillow” and “Egg”. The brothers also spoke very briefly in the few lulls that the set provided, keeping the breakneck pace of the performance going all the way into the encore. It was a boisterous night of music impossible to box into a genre- and that’s part of the fun for The Garden and their fans. Their Arizona devotees stuck it out for the entire night as their face paint melted in the humidity and the mosh pit never let up and the satisfaction on so many faces leaving the venue will certainly serve to bring The Garden back for more nights like these.
