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By Bryan Clark
The Entourage are Kyle Jarrow on keyboards and vocals, Travis Chamberlain on bass and vocals, Perry Silver on drums, and Libby Winters on vocals and guitars. (Additional vocalist Emily Wilbur gave her farewell performance at this show.) For their release party, they wisely placed only a few chairs and cocktail tables, leaving a wide center space for their throngs of dancing fans. But even fans get shy and nervous, and those fans quickly found the stack of folding chairs in the corner and arranged them into a seating configuration. Undaunted - and knowing a dance floor disaster when they saw it - the Entourage abandoned whatever opening patter they might have planned, and insisted that the audience "fold up [their] chairs [and] put them away," as they ramped up into their opening blast of sound. The audience complied, amidst an amusing and appropriate shattering of beer glasses on the floor.
The set list was very nearly the album in order, with a few sly divergences. The Entourage opened as usual with their Theme Song, which might as easily be called Fabulous. Their current self-concept is plainly laid out in this number: they shall band together and insist on an upbeat lifestyle, to fight against the trap of isolation and disappointment. Regardless of the complexity of themes that the Entourage has offered as of late - the universal craving to be famous, the confusion of anonymity, and the dilemma of having a sense of fractured self - the one that should bring you to their dance floor is spelled out in their Theme Song: "We're gonna clear your gray skies," they sing. And indeed they do.
This is not to say that the Fabulous Entourage is not capable of exploring bleakness - this is in fact their alternate specialty. Save Me (Please) is a cleverly placed dark turn into a sense of true longing with a perfect blend of dry male lead vocals - "Would you like to take a ride with me?" - played against a plaintive response of female vocal reply: "The truth is / I am a broken person."
And then, out of nowhere, they crash into Million Buxx, which, back in the day, would have been a B-side hit single. It's a dark and dangerous dance tune which was long available on their website, but nearly impossible to encounter live. For those who may fear that the Entourage is devoted to saccharine platitudes, let this number reassure you: "Baby I would buy you a diamond necklace / but I ain't got the money and you ain't got the class / I got dirt on my face and you got tears in your stocking / so let's shut the window and let's steam up the glass!"
After a splendidly dark dirge called The Lying Song, the Entourage arrived at Midnight Cowboy, an odd fan favorite which would logically be the end of side one of the LP version of this album. The back-up girls take most of the lead on this dance floor rave-up, and Chamberlain moves from bass to second keyboard for full disco groove stylings. He also adds a touch of Fred Schneider vocal commentary for a bit of B-52's flavor.
The first set ended with a few non-album tunes, including End of the World, which is a highlight of the live show despite its absence from the album. Keyboardist Jarrow takes his moment in the spotlight on this number, stepping back from the keys to sing the refrain "girl you're gonna get stronger" while shaking his hips like Paul Stanley of KISS.
Marathon is a showcase for vocalists Winters and Wilbur - and the only number on the album with the total absence of male voices. It is a welcome bit of variety, and though it is one of the shortest songs on the album at under three minutes, it remains intensely engaging from the very first lyric: "When you do a thing so many times, it feels so right, no matter what that thing may be." The long view of life as a marathon is sophisticated and enthralling.
Perry's Dream is apocalyptic, disturbing and hilarious. It is also more arresting live than on the record, especially as drummer Perry Silver leaves his kit to play on found objects (at this venue, it was a metal loading door) and the vocal lines seem to jump out more jarringly in a live space - "I killed everyone but you / Once they were gone / then I could know your love was true."
The album track Burn the City Down was not included in the show. This deletion was probably a wise choice for the pacing of the live show, but on CD it is not to be skipped. Peter Gabriel piano chords meet Riders on the Storm as covered by Cowboy Junkies. The number was replaced live by a somewhat confusing non-album tune called Love in Wartime, which thrillingly, but inexplicably, turns into Swing Low Sweet Chariot at the end.
Danger Song brought the set to the brink of completion, with the members of the Entourage casting themselves as super heroes in an urban fantasia. The finale was a cover of the Tom Jones tune Sex Bomb, which is inarguably more entertaining than the original. The Sex Bomb hanging over the audience was finally revealed to be a piņata, which blindfolded audience members were invited to smash with a plastic baseball bat until it spewed its treasure of candy and condoms.
Over the four years that The Fabulous Entourage have developed from a performance art duo (Chamberlain and Jarrow) into their current five-member configuration, they have tried on all manner of self-descriptions, from "glam rock" to "a fearless combination of punk and pop" and everything in between. This release party show swept away the need for a debate over categorization, and brought a clarity and cohesion to their upbeat and honest club music. And the Play Nice Now CD is an unusually fine representation of their effervescent persona and sound.
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he Fabulous Entourage deserve to be provided with a bright red front curtain, which rises dramatically as they begin the opening vamp of their Theme Song in any venue that books them. This, of course, was not to be had in the back room of Williamsburg's popular haunt Galapagos on April 29, at the release party for their long-awaited debut CD Play Nice Now. But the upside of the back room is that while you waited for the show to start, you got to watch the bassist hanging a papier-mache Sex Bomb piņata and the back-up singer placing set lists on the floor. Glamorous it's not, but this isn't the kind of glamour that the Entourage are contemplating when they refer to themselves as a glam rock band.
