I’ve already written about how Electric Six is a spectacle that must be experienced live, and their concert on the 11th at the Key Club merely reinforced that fact.

Though many of the theatrics from their last tour (capes, consistent ‘dance’ routines from Dick Valentine, and his hilarious between song banter) were oddly absent, Electric Six did nothing less than dazzle the rowdy, drunk, and entirely white crowd. I only mention how white the crowd was because it’s something unusual to see at a concert, especially in the heart of LA. I scanned the crowd and out of the pretty large number of people there (I’d guess but I’d be off, so let’s just say it was more than 60 people) there were only maybe three non-whites. I can’t draw any conclusions from this—except that maybe that the ‘disco’ in E6′s ‘disco rock’ alienates everyone except the whitest most geekiest of people.

On the upside the entire crowd was into them, dancing from the very beginning, shouting out “GO!” during Down at McDonaldz, and generally behaving like a bunch of asshats. Two guys standing up against the stage were singing every word and doing hand motions for almost every lyric—most of this seemed to be made up on their own, or derived from previous concerts (like the Improper Dancing arm movement that is somewhat scary) but their fandom was fully of their own creation. They were as entertaining to watch as the band itself.

I don’t really know what to say about Electric Six except that they are awesome and their awesomeness doesn’t come across on their albums at all. This is a sad thing, because they are really quite stupendous and definitely know how to get a floor full of (white) people moving. Best of all, after the crowd didn’t disperse at all after the first three song encore, they came back out (after a lot of technical troubles stemming from the sound guy at the Key Club getting up and leaving after the first encore) and played another five songs. You can’t really argue with a band that does that.