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Photos: Cage the Elephant at the Ames Hotel

Live Reviews

Melody and mayhem

It was that over-muscled Middle East security guard’s worst nightmare. At midnight a week ago Saturday, right before “Boys, You Won’t,” Wrens bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Kevin Whelan passed out a bunch of drumsticks to the crowd and invited them on stage downstairs. The kids gathered around the Wrens (Kevin Whelan, Charles Bissell, Greg Whelan, Jerry MacDonnell), following unspoken orders to pound on anything from the floor to their own sweaty palms, scream-singing along with the band. Whelan bent over his keys and guitarist/vocalist Charles Bissell coaxed sounds out of his tape delay that must have made ludicrous opener Craig Wedren insanely jealous. (Memo to Wedren: bald head plus sideburns does not a groupie magnet make.) One “Yeah dude” standing next to Bissell was in such a state of indie-rock ecstasy, I thought he’d faint from joy.

If you didn’t know better, the Wrens might look to be just a bunch of past-their-prime fortysomething dads. Except they represent a romantic indie ideal. The scene knows the sob story: years of bad label deals even as critics pushed the band. And rightly so, especially with the wall-to-wall fuzz-pop gems on 2003’s indie opus The Meadowlands. Live they have a reputation for being unpredictable: at the Middle East they were cool and generous enough to throw 10 T-shirts into the audience as the room went from dead silence during the brief “The House That Guilt Built” to absolute mayhem during “Hopeless” and “Everyone Chooses Sides.”

Whelan himself was blissed out enough to pause after “Happy,” a song that builds from finger-picked heartbreak to pummeling anthem in about three minutes. Wild-eyed and raspy-throated, he said, “We’re the Wrens from New Jersey, but you are so fucking awesome we’re going to change our name to the Wrens from Boston.” In the blue lights, he looked young again. They all did.