Nearly Ready for Prime Time: Whigs Show Style at the Palace

The Afghan Whigs’ noir-esque words and musical collage of buttery R&B;, Stonesy romp-rock and punk has made the band a critical favorite--one perpetually mired on the fringes of alternia. The Whigs are the little band that could and should but never quite does cross into mainstream success.

Saturday at the Palace, the band delivered a stylized set of searing funk-rock that fluttered underneath with dark, destructive despair. Deliciously artful, puzzling and complex, this arena-ready band pulled out the club’s entire artillery of lighting magic on this tour to promote its latest album “Black Love.”

The band’s popularity owes a lot to front man Greg Dulli, one of the most talented lyricists in modern rock, who lived up to his role as a funky Tom Jones--sans flying panties. In silky black, he combined the seductive croon of Curtis Mayfield with the nihilistic yowl of Billy Corgan, the over-the-top smarm of a lounge-lizard with the brattiness of Dennis the Menace. Dulli is a dazzling disco bete noir.

In the middle of the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” however, as Dulli recast Jim Morrison’s famous Oedipal nightmare and PJ Harvey’s “Down by the Water,” the Whigs’ last big hurdle became clear. Only when he offered interpretations of others’ lines did Dulli dig beneath his cool, self-conscious veneer to probe true passion. By the time Dulli halfheartedly dropped his guitar like a voyeur witnessing his own bleak act, it was clear that the Whigs need only push their theatrics beyond delicious club-land shtick and into heartfelt catharsis.