The Hive Mentality is "Awesome"

Seattlest is not a big fan of bees. Sure, those hard-working sons-a-bitches get the flowers pollinated and make delicious honey, but besides that, bees haven't done much for us lately. We hate being stung, and we could seriously do without all that infernal buzzing. But throw our favoritest local music collective into the mix, and we'll gladly sit through a hundred minutes of bees as a thematic element and still consider it awesome.

Thursday was opening night at On the Boards for the new music/theater/multimedia performance piece noSIGNAL. Like all things "Awesome," it's fairly indescribable, something better experienced than thoroughly explained. We will tell you that it involves the aforementioned colony insects, as well as ruminations on career, family, rebellion against a higher authority (religion?), the first unicorn king, and a fleeting reference to apoptosis. The work is absurdist to be sure, but it's decidedly more cohesive and ponderous than their previous spectacular, Delaware. The show left us mulling it over after the fact, and that's definitely a good thing. We don't think there's one true Big Message to the production. It's certainly not as trite as "Corporate life turns us all into drones." There's a lot going on here, and that's something we really enjoyed about the show---you can take from it what you will, and your interpretation of things is just as valid as anyone else's. Unless you're stupid. Then your opinion is meaningless.

As to the performance itself, "Awesome" assuredly spent a lot of time on noSIGNAL, and it shows. The first half is more theater-heavy, while the second half is more music-based. We'll be interested to see which of the dozen or so brand-new songs make the leap from noSIGNAL to their club dates---like next Tuesday at the Croc, opening for Elf Power. Down to the details (the short ties, their trademark black jackets, the non sequitur-filled notecards scattered about the stage), the show is extremely well-thought out and -executed. Our companion noted that the band made good use of On the Board's space, starting out grouped together center stage, and spreading out over the course of the piece, only to end up back in the middle. The beginning is the end is the beginning, as they say.

You've only got two more nights to see this epic production. Make it so.

noSIGNAL
On the Boards Mainstage
May 4-6, 8PM
$18
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