It might have been fitting that the Fratellis’ big sold out show at the 9:30 Club Monday came on the same night preseason hockey started. It is their anthem “Chelsea Dagger,” after all, that has become the biggest NHL anthem since Gary Glitter.
Even if you don’t know the title, you still know it, since it’s been adopted by the Chicago Blackhawks, all of its farm teams, a bunch of TV shows and commercials to boot. It’s like one of those rock songs that’s in the air at all times, its “Dat-ta-ta-da..” indicating a certain carefree go-to-hell spirit, but a especially fierce one.
But there were no hockey jerseys visible in the sellout crowd. Instead a bunch of people who knew every one of their songs that similarly combine soccer stadium chants and crunching chords, creating a kind of call-and-response, as in “Flathead,” another early song, that itself was used in an iPad ad.
And while the Fratellis could certainly fashion a career out of such a formula, their approach is much more varied, touching on a twang here and there, a classic 50s styling there, something approaching a ballad over here. One of their best songs, a 60s style “Lupe Brown” from their unfairly-maligned second album “Here We Stand,” got a performance worthy of its majesty.
But they rock overall in a way that kept a generous set of nearly two dozen songs driving from start to finish.
Like bands from the Ramones to the Wiggles, the members of the Fratellis have all adopted the band name as their surnames, and they certainly play like they’ve been brothers since they formed a decade ago in Glasgow.
Their driving rock is the same kind of pub-and-punk combination that puts them in a British Aisles continuum from Stiff Little Fingers to Arctic Monkeys.
Their manner of dress is just as straightforward as their music, with jeans and unfettered T shirts —
frontman Jon Fratelli, the former John Lawler, went sleeveless and kept on a big Panama straw hat all night to shade his eyes.
Ten years and four albums have given the band a lot to play on the road, and they’ve been consistent enough to include some from each offering. But still, most of the show concentrated on their great breakthrough “Costello Music,” whose “Henrietta” kicked off the show.
Nearly as many songs — seven — were played from its 2013 album “We Need Medicine,” including the anthemic title track that ended the main set. Just six songs were from the solid current “Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied” but they fit in fine with the rest.
Here was a band that didn’t take much of a break between songs, whose frontman spoke only a few times. When he broke a string on his beat-up red Telecaster, he was given a second red Telecaster, every bit as beat up.
On stage drinking might be naturally expected with this level of party music, but the band, which includes Barry Fratelli (nee Wallace) on bass and Mince Fratelli, the former Gordon McRory on drums, and Will Foster as touring keyboardist, pretty much stuck to bottled water.
And the music, as raucous as it might seem, was remarkably tight as a result.
The Fratellis saved “Chelsea Dagger” until the third song of the encore and despite the rise from the crowd, didn’t treat it much differently than any other driving song in the set. They didn’t extend it or stage a big clap-along or even introduce it. But they did leave the entire, familiar singalong melody entirely to the crowd, who were happy to sing it: Dat-da-dat-da, Dat-da-da, Dat-da-da.
In their first U.S. tour in years, there was obviously a pent up desire to see the band in all of its glory from fans who will likely look forward to seeing them again.
The show started with a set by Grizfolk, a band that is neither. Rather it’s a frontman from Florida who, with a duo from Sweden and a couple of additional sidemen, are learning more and more to become a generic L.A. band.