I want you to know, Chisel's star was killing me...

The much beloved indie-mod-pop band Chisel disbanded in 1997. I saw the band perform only twice before they split (both shows within months of each other in 1996.) On Saturday night, Chisel returned to The Black Cat in Washington, DC with support from DC’s Bed Maker and noise rock-ish New York City quartet Savak. The show was the fourth of a five date East Coast run to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the release of ‘Set You Free’, Chisel’s second and final full-length LP.

DC post-hardcore act Bed Maker took the stage with vocalist Amanda MacKaye telling the crowd that their performance would begin in less than one minute. 53 or so seconds later, they did just that, playing nine songs, of which only two have been officially released. MacKaye paced the stage throughout the performance while Arthur Noll, Jeff Barsky and Vin Novara played angular post-punk which recalled traces of The Fall and Gang of Four with a smidgen of Ignition thrown in for good measure. Although Bed Maker has been playing out for a few years now, this was the first time I’d seen them perform, and with any luck, it won’t be the last. You can purchase two digital singles on Bed Maker’s Bandcamp page.

Bed Maker, performing an unknown titled song on May 13, 2023 at The Black Cat in Washington, DC.

Savak, from New York City, played a 14-song set drawn from their impressively prolific (albeit in a relatively short matter of time) output of singles and albums. They left my ears ringing in a good way. Although the band operates out of NYC, former Edsel member Sohrab Habibion is originally based in the DC area. If I had to categorize their clang, I’d call it noise-pop. They rocked really fucking hard. They also seemed to be having a lot of fun doing it. One person beside me did not stop moving the entire set. Again, I’d been missing out on Savak these last six years or so and had not even previewed a single song before Saturday night’s show. They seem to stop by DC pretty often, so I’m sure we will be seeing more of Savak soon.

Savak performing the song ‘Silhoettes’ on May 13, 2023 at The Black Cat in Washington, DC.

Ted Leo introduced the band as “Chisel, from Washington, D.C.”, which while technically not necessarily true, as the band originally formed at Notre Dame University just north of South Bend, Indiana around 1990, for me at least, I always considered Chisel to be a “DC band”. Saturday night’s show at The Black Cat was a homecoming of sorts. Twenty-six years may feel like a long time, but honestly, watching Chisel perform songs from their two full-length LP’s ‘8 A.M. All Day’ and ‘Set You Free’ on Saturday night, it didn’t feel like that much time had passed. The songs all sounded as fresh as if they had just been recorded and released. I never really had the opportunity to see Chisel perform any of the ‘Set You Free’ material, as both shows I saw were in ’96 while they were touring behind ‘8 A.M. All Day’. The band had split by mid 1997. I am glad that I finally got to hear the band perform songs like ‘It’s Alright, You’re O.K.’, ‘The Mutable Mercury’, ‘River High’ and ‘Do Go On’. I just have a soft spot in my heart for the ‘8 A.M. All Day’ material because that is what I know so very well and connected with.

Chisel performing the song ‘Your Star Is Killing Me’ at The Black Cat in Washington, DC.

DC was the fourth of five stops in as many days for the band, and vocalist Ted Leo’s voice was, as he admitted while introducing ‘Your Star Is Killing Me’, in pretty bad shape. He invited the crowd to jump in to lend a hand with vocals in the event he had to pull back himself, and the crowd did oblige. Despite that hurdle, everything translated well throughout the set. Leo dedicated the song ‘What About Blighty?’ to Archie Moore, best known as a member of Black Tambourine and Velocity Girl, who recorded the song. They played a mix of both albums with a slight skew towards the ‘Set You Free’ material. Even though the members are separated by some distance making a full reunion unlikely, one can hope that when ‘8 A.M. All Day’ reaches its next milestone anniversary, perhaps they will reconvene for another slew of shows. In all, Chisel played 19 songs which included a 2-song encore.

The Numero Group recently reissued Chisel’s second full-length album ‘Set You Free’, which you can purchase on multiple different colored vinyl variants direct from Numero.

Enjoy photos from the show Saturday, May 13th at The Black Cat in DC.