The Pains of Being Pure at Heart make their Chicago set short and sweet

February 11, 2009, at Schubas

By Sheba White
Published: February 13th, 2009 | 1:55pm

It’s that scene in Sixteen Candles: Anthony Michael Hall’s character is dancing in front of Molly Ringwald’s character in a desperate bid to win her affection from the monobrow jock on her mind. The dance is a bit pathetic: lots of unnecessary footwork, some shoulder twitching, and moments of skyward glancing — all accompanied by Turrets-like yelping. In the ’80s, the dance was known as the jerk, a parodied spin on a famous Steve Martin routine that later became fodder for black comedians’ take on some white folks’ stiff dancing. It was then ironically imitated by emo crowds in the ’90s and un-ironically picked up later by hipster geeks, who pull it out for special concerts.

At the Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s show at Schubas, the dance was in full swing among audience members. Lanky white boys cut the air with their bony, twitching shoulders and howl out absurdities between glances at their iPhone messages. “The Pains, the Pains!” some random fan shouts midway through the set. And just in case it wasn’t clear, he tells us, “I just want to chant their name!” Dude … (Insert Molly Ringwald’s eye-rolling response here).

To be fair, the New York band draws out such enthusiastic responses for the same reasons that a band like the Psychedelic Furs was the soundtrack to every ’80s teen movie: The quartet is so straightforward about their roots (in their case C86-inspired, Fender-driven indie pop), so perfectly understated in their unfussy vocals, and just obscure enough in their lyrics not to intimidate — it’s hard not to like them.

Especially so when they arrive on stage dressed in their best imitation of your little brother’s or little sister’s first band, and lead vocalist Kip Berman sheepishly announces that there are “some really important people” in attendance: “My mom, my uncle, and my cousins …” On cue, the audience ahs and giggles as Berman starts out the set with his trademark laconic vocals on “Doing All the Things That Wouldn’t Make Your Parents Proud,” surprisingly not one of the 10 tracks on the Pains’ full-length, self-titled debut on Slumberland.

But just as the twitching shoulders start to become dangerous weapons and the cameras have been put away for some serious get-downing, Berman announces that “Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan” will be the second-to-last song of their eight-song set. An audible “hunh…” can be heard from fans. In this age of short attention spans, it may be wisdom or folly for a fairly new band to play such a short set, but the lasting effect is the same as it was in Anthony Michael Hall’s character’s case when Molly Ringwald’s character walks away in the middle of his dance offering: delayed confusion and a hope that the uninhibited chance for adulation will come again.

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For more photos from this show visit Venus Zine’s Flickr page.
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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart feature