I will readily admit that, despite the satanic shout-out of their band name, I fully expected The Devil Makes Three to make for a very conservative and almost stuffy show-going experience. I’d read that their sound was a jumble of old-timey American styles, paying homage to bluegrass, folk, and jazz with a mix of covers and origins. In my mind, I imagined the Corona Theatre filled with polite musicologists, reclining and applauding quietly with every reference to the masters of country/western music. I’m happy to report that I was extremely wrong.
Although Lost Dog Street Band had been set to open for the band, it was actually Les Deuxluxes who stepped in to kick off the show, and though the actual configuration hasn’t changed since Etienne Barry and Anna Frances Meyer took the scene at the Cabaret du Mile End, the band has never looked and sounded this confident. Although the two-person busking setup doesn’t give Barry much room to bounce around and leaves him planted with his guitar at the drum kit, Meyer has more than enough stage presence for the both of them.
“It’s colder than a witch’s tit in here,” she said at the start of the set, strapping on her own guitar. “But we’re gonna warm it up for you.” Playing songs from their new record Springtime Devil, they did just that. Mostly abandoning the surf-rock influence of their first album to fully embrace a heavier and bluesier garage-rock sound, Les Deuxluxes now have a muscular set of songs to match Meyer’s mighty vocals – songs that, like the smoking stomper “Lost”, aren’t afraid to really slow it down and let the band sizzle.
Coming from the heat of Santa Cruz to Montreal probably isn’t that easy, but The Devil Makes Three got a hell of a warm welcome from the Corona. Coming out to a sick pop from the crowd and basking in the glow of firefly spotlights, it felt like the 5-piece were already walking out for an encore victory lap before even playing – but, jumping straight into a thumping banjo-heavy cover of Robert Johnson’s “Drunken Hearted Man”, it was obvious why they got the reaction that they did: The Devil Makes Three are really cool.
While they may offer a throw-back blend of music that nimbly dances through a number of genres from the first 150 years of the United States, there is nothing about TDM3 that seems outdated. Despite the very classical jugband-style configuration of guitar, banjo, upright bass, drums, and the occasional fiddle, the band very easily connected to an audience that was surprisingly (to me) made up of heavy metal fans. Pulling from their deep repertoire and their new covers album Redemption & Ruin, The Devil Makes Three have no problem finding a relatable core in Americana that transcends any time or space, even if it’s in the bouncy 1920s gypsy jazz of “I’m Gonna Get High”: drugs, drinking, dancing, and dying.
This seems to be a particularly powerful recipe for a good time, especially with a rowdy crowd like this. Though I didn’t think I’d see crowdsurfing at a bluegrass show, the Corona security guards were kept busy, blocking dudes from falling over the barricade all night – whether during the sinister waltz of “Johnson Family”, the darkly jazzy “Stranger”, the furious fiddling and bluegrass-punk of “The Plank”, or banjo-guy Cooper McBean’s goofy “Gracefully Facedown”. I obviously wasn’t the only one who was surprised by the crowd, leaving guitarist Pete Bernhard to marvel: “this is the first show I ever been at where I saw someone crowdsurfing in a wheelchair.”
Oh yeah, that happened. And it was magnificent. I’m sorry I expected anything else.
Written by Dan Corber
Photographed by Kieron Yates
