Deer Tick brought the summer heat to Madison on Friday evening (not that they needed to in 90-degree weather), rocking King Street with one bluesy indie song after another. With beers up, collectively dripping sweat, the audience made a toast with frontman John McCauley mid-concert while the band drew their instruments together in a cacophony of raging, brilliant noise.

It’s clear that Deer Tick will take any opportunity they can to light up the stage for a grand guitar solo, duet, or even just an all-out combined effort to wake up the entire city.

During the climax of the track “Mr. Sticks,” from the band’s most recent album, Negativity, John McCauley and Ian O’Neil literally butted heads with an impressive guitar battle, pushing against each other front stage like kids fighting for the spotlight. Whether they were fighting or hugging each other is yet to be known, but we all felt the love.

Deer Tick sustained an incredible energy throughout the concert: not one song failed to impress. Popular favorites like “Twenty Miles,” “The Dream’s in the Ditch,” and “Main Street” audibly split the audience into toe-tapping locals and the Deer Tick aficionados, who slowly cranked up the volume (and the rest of the audience) by humming the band’s emotional lyrics.

It helped that this quintet from Providence, R.I.—which apparently has “a lot of potheads… a lot of corruption…” (as said by the clearly eloquent songwriter McCauley)—is simply good. Picking up styles from all over the place, the band can go from sounding like Nirvana to the Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan within a short sequence of songs. However, they still carry their own lonely, folky tone of wisdom and heartbreak. It was easy and natural for all of us in the audience to feel at home.

So it’s clear that Madison loved Deer Tick, but did Deer Tick love Madison? Maybe, maybe not. Following the concert, the band tweeted:

And later:

Yikes. As far as this listener is concerned, the night went well. Melancholy-tinged summer happiness in the air, with the Capitol shedding white light amidst good friends and good music? It could be worse. Deer Tick would probably agree.

About The Author

Avatar photo

Lexy Brodt is a student at UW-Madison currently majoring in economics, potentially double majoring in journalism. She spends most of her time watching episodes of Broad City over root beer floats and reading in bed.