Gutter Twins @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC [3/20/08]

Gonna keep this short since I have to catch a train to New York first thing in the morning...

Caught the Gutter Twins for the first time tonight and walked away with almost the same reaction I had after hearing the album for the first time - very good, but not great.

I'm just not sure if the pairing of Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan actually works. Dulli writes sweeping, sexy, exciting rock and roll. And as much as I like Mark Lanegan's voice - possibly one of the coolest in rock music - he brings a very dark, moody and, honestly, a pretty boring presence to the music.

While both Dulli and Lanegan are well known for the sinister edge to their music (which is largely why people were excited about the combination in the first place), they come at things from such drastically different angles that they almost seem to neutralize each other. Speaking from nearly 20 years of seeing Dulli perform live, his shows are supposed to be fun. And while I thought the band sounded excellent tonight, and the show was enjoyable, there was very little that was fun about the show.

Unless, of course, you consider it fun to watch a guy stand on stage with his eyes closed while grasping onto the mic stand like it was his only friend for an hour straight (I'm talking about Lanegan - take a look at the photos below, it's basically the same stance he had for the entire 90 minute set).

Seriously, I'm not sure if Lanegan (a) opened his eyes once during the set, or (b) proposed to that mic stand after the show.