The ceiling in Starlab's basement is nearly eight feet high, with an exposed metal dropped grid which at one point probably held acoustic tile. Mid-set, TD drops his crutches, clutches the mic and extends one hand to the grid. He's a big dude, over six feet tall, wearing a Tweety Bird tank and never-nude cut-off jeans. He moves like he wants to dance out of his cast, making me wonder if he's going to take the ceiling down. It's in this pose — looking like a bearded diva with one leg cast-crooked, a hand to the sky and one on the mic — that he deliverers his portion of the song.
Mac, shirtless, sways and pounds his chest, the DJs bend over the laptops, throwing beats back and forth — and life in the room breathes in and out and back in again.
"You really have to want to play music in Boston, but the highlight: you can just do whatever," TD had said before the gig. "No A&R guy is driving around saying 'Where's the next hot band?' . . . Well, I don't think that happens anywhere, but. . . . "
He didn't even need to finish his thought. No rules, indeed.
BIG DIGITS + INITIALS B.R. | Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge | September 7 @ 10 pm | 21+ | $3 | 617.868.6739 or middlesexlounge.com
