POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Dirty Rotten Imbeciles Thrash the Palace Well

As surely as Chubby Checker blows into town to play the twist or Frankie Yankovic to play the polka, the thrash band Dirty Rotten Imbeciles sweeps in from the Bay Area to propel a dance-floor scene of its very own. D.R.I. is the Myron Floren of the slam pit, and at the Palace on Thursday, things were slamming indeed.

When D.R.I. plays, the floor looks from above like those speeded-up studies of Grand Central Station in “Koyaanisqatsi,” constant jiggling, exaggerated flows of motion, more frenzied roiling than the eye can comprehend. Every so often, a half-naked body would launch from the midst of the Palace crowd, twisting in the air like a Sea World porpoise. D.R.I. is sort of a speeded-up version of reality too: very fast, very tight, highly professional, sort of catchy; the sort of hyper-speed guitar drone every hard-core punk band aspired to.

Like any good dance band, D.R.I. leaves the spectacle to its audience. Halfway through the set, singer Kurt Brecht apologized for the onstage security, who shrugged and retired to the wings. “OK, let’s see what you can do,” Brecht said. “Just don’t thrash the equipment.” And an incredible hail of bodies began from the Palace stage, sometimes half a dozen at a time, doing back-flips, belly-flops, cannonballs, springing like fleas or settling into the crowd like Grandpa into his rocker. A great D.R.I. show, which this was, is one of the great spectacles of rock.