Pop Music Reviews : A Free Freak-Out at the Santa Monica Pier

It’s old news now that House of Freaks has exceeded everyone’s expectations of what a two-man band (guitar and drums) can accomplish, but Monday’s well-attended free concert at the Santa Monica Pier set up another potential hurdle: Would that big an audience, that big a sky, that big an ocean and (in Monday’s clear, brisk weather) that big a wind dwarf the boys from Virginia?

As it turned out, the sound, at least, was big enough to compete with the elements. Singer Bryan Harvey always finds bass notes in his electric guitar that most axemen wouldn’t bother to hunt for, and drummer Johnny Hott makes frequent use of his booming floor toms for rhythms most stickmen would relegate to the cymbals.

And the outdoor setting allowed for spontaneous staging effects, like the guest appearance by a flock of sea gulls (not the group) that hovered over the stage during one percussive break, as if on cue. Another guest, one of the local homeless men, stepped on stage during “40 Years” to bang his head with a percussion instrument but had to be carted off when he opted for a strip-tease instead.

The 1,000-plus fans were eager, attentive, appreciative--but not galvanized. That might be because as lyricists, Harvey and Hott don’t take enough advantage of their musical power. They tend to drench their subject matter in symbols, immersing all the energy in pools of metaphors that aren’t all that vivid as imagery to begin with. Harvey sings with the passion of a Lennon or Costello; if he could just tell us how he feels instead of cleverly suggesting it, he’d be much closer to that league.