By Christopher David<\/p>\n
No term was more ubiquitous (and indeed, meaningless) in the 1990s as \u201calternative rock.\u201d Of\u00a0course, this is widely acknowledged now by both those who came of age in that decade as well\u00a0as those who revisit it from a younger distance, but I found myself thinking about this as the side\u00a0door of Beat Kitchen opened around 11:30 on Saturday night and the members of Veruca Salt\u00a0made their way through the crowd like boxers on the way to the ring, ready for a title fight. The\u00a0roar from the packed house was deafening; the crowd apoplectic. As the foursome immediately\u00a0launched into the explosive slow-burner \u201cPrince of Wales\u201d from new album Ghost Notes, the\u00a0word \u201calternative\u201d seemed even sillier: Veruca Salt are, and always were, a rock band, pure and\u00a0simple. In the best sense of the word.<\/p>\n
Veruca Salt\u2019s comeback has been arguably the most rewarding band reunion imaginable from a\u00a0fan perspective. The band has been highly active on social media and live-streaming site\u00a0Periscope in the last few months, and their fanbase (loving referred to as \u201cSaltines\u201d) have\u00a0rewarded them with the kind of devotion that few bands get to enjoy in their career. Soulmate\u00a0songwriter\/guitarists Nina Gordon and Louise Post are obviously having the time of their lives at\u00a0this point in their career, and bassist Steve Lack and drummer Jim Shapiro have never been\u00a0tighter. The sixty-minute set offered an adrenalin-charged blast for diehards as well as a perfect\u00a0primer for the uninitiated, focusing on punchier tunes, from singles \u201cShutterbug\u201d and \u201cVolcano\u00a0Girls\u201d to first-album classics \u201cAll Hail Me\u201d and \u201cForsynthia,\u201d which Gordon mused were surely\u00a0played on the Beat Kitchen stage back in 1993.<\/p>\n
Ghost Notes, one of 2015\u2019s best albums so far, fits as seamlessly into the band\u2019s canon as one\u00a0could imagine, and new tunes like single \u201cLaughing in the Sugar Bowl\u201d and \u201cThe Museum of\u00a0Broken Relationships\u201d hold their own with anything from the band\u2019s past.\u00a0\u201cOnce upon a time, there was a band from Chicago,\u201d Post said with a wicked smile, \u201cand we\u00a0definitely played this club before. We also played the Empty Bottle.\u201d As the band slithered into\u00a0the new song of that same name, it was hard, as a longtime fan, not to feel a touch of joyful\u00a0melancholy as Post and Gordon sang, presumably to each other, reflecting on the burying of\u00a0hatchets with lines like \u201cI don\u2019t want to bleed if you\u2019re not bleeding with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opportunities to see \u201cbig\u201d bands in small places are few and far between these days, and\u00a0Saturday\u2019s show at Beat Kitchen will surely go down as one of those \u201cI was there\u201d moments in\u00a0the Chicago scene as one of the city\u2019s most talented bands made it clear why they deserved the\u00a0kind of devotion they\u2019re currently experiencing as the Ghost Notes tour gets rolling. Veruca Salt\u00a0is a rock band, in the best sense of the word. We need them, and every person in attendance\u00a0on Saturday night, for one feedback and harmony-drenched hour, got a rare opportunity to see\u00a0exactly why.<\/p>\n