If Shelby Cinca and Jason Hamacher made one thing obvious on Saturday night, it's that the two original members of the influential DC mathrock band never stopped loving being in Frodus. Despite having broken up nearly ten years ago, the two, with Liam Wilson of Dillinger Escape Plan filling in on bass, rocked out like the year 2000 never happened.
Frodus broke up in 1999 on the cusp of releasing once of the most widely influential albums of the genre, And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea. Despite the hiatus, their music continued to have a huge impact on bands at the time in their infancy, such as Thursday and Thrice. Even though they had really only played a few small shows since reuniting for a showcase at SXSW this past March, the self proclaimed spazzcore band had what looked like the most fun ever playing to a devoted Barbary crowd. Not only were they as tight musically as the day they before the breakup, they also played with a lack of pretension that completely put the crowd at ease. Cinca and Hamacher poked goodnatured fun at Liam "I Love to Play in the Metal Stance" Wilson the whole night, repeatedly calling him "the only professional in the band."
At one point, when they felt the audience was too subdued, they pulled a particularly psyched fan out of the crowd, made him go shirtless and put a fur pelt on him. "Your mission is to catch him," Hamacher told the crowd before immediately launching into an avalanche of spasmodic post-hardcore. When that didn't bring the crowd to freakout levels they felt sufficient, they brought the show to the floor old-school style, and played the rest of the set right in the faces of the finally crazed attendees.
