The turnout was overwhelmingly young at Webster Hall on Wednesday, October 2, for Duster, a heavy, depressing-sounding (in a good way) band that initially released music at a time when most of the audience was in grade school.
Their debut album, Stratosphere, was released in 1998, at least five years before most of the hands gripping the stage barrier, marked by black X’s for audience members under 21, were born.
As Duster’s set time approached, OG Duster fans and veteran concertgoers who skipped the opener began to fill in GA behind a wave of younglings. Shoegaze is the new dad rock, with bands like Duster, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine ballooning in popularity with the under-25 crowd, arguably eclipsing their initial popularity.
Duster has a perfect grip on the audience’s attention, purposefully subdued, choosing when to cater to the audience. After the first two songs, young voices called out from the crowd, “Turn up your mics. We can’t hear you!” From the stage, Canaan Amber replied softly and succinctly, “No.” As the show continued, the overhead lights faded, and only the LED screen behind them remained, silhouetting them against pulsing and swimming colors.
The term “shoegaze” can only describe the textural aspect of Duster’s music and leaves out the most gripping part of their sound: tempo. Often called slowcore, a subgenre interested in intensely slow tempos, head banging here is more like nodding with the slow heartbeat of drums and droning guitars.
Duster seems to pull the tempo even harder live than on the studio recordings, often leaving the audience leaning in before finally reaching the climax of the songs. Injecting a burst of energy for but a moment, and yet, when each song concludes, the audience erupts, held in stasis until one intensely gratifying moment. It’s an exciting feeling that is very different live versus listening at home. Now, Duster makes their way through the midwest until they reach California for two shows at the beginning of November to conclude their tour.
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