During their last visit to SLO Brew Rock last September, Drugdealer joked about never coming back to San Luis Obispo. “Anyways we’re back,” lead member Michael Collins said at their most recent show at SLO Brew on March 22.
Drugdealer’s second show at SLO Brew in the last year showed the band’s growth after releasing their most recent album, “Hiding in Plain Sight,” and touring across the U.S. and Australia.
Oakland-based band Fake Fruit played an opening set of post-punk originals. It was their first of two shows with Drugdealer, with their second being the next day, further north at Felton Music Hall in Santa Cruz county.
Through the pandemic, Fake Fruit found success as they began releasing music with their debut self-titled album in 2021. With the return of live music, they continued playing shows and opening for notable bands such as Wet Leg and Drycleaning, and are set to perform at Outside Lands in August.
The band played songs from their album, such as “Stroke My Ego” and “Milkman,” but for the most part, they played some of their newer, unreleased songs. D’Amato sang most of the songs, occasionally switching off with the lead guitarist, Alex Post, and the bassist, Martin Miller.
The band’s set was unfortunately interrupted by some difficulties, including a broken string for lead guitarist, Alex Post. “This is rock and roll man,” D’Amato said. She kept the performance entertaining and interactive as the band worked through the delays, telling the audience about a taco-eating contest and their recent trip to Austin, Texas. They had just come from the South by Southwest festival, where they played eight shows in five days.
Eventually figuring out the technical difficulties, D’Amato thanked the crowd for their patience and the band continued the performance.
Bassist Jackson MacIntosh. Aidan Dillon | KCPR
Drugdealer took the stage after being introduced by a recorded introduction. Collins made sure the audience knew what to expect, jokingly detailing a brief plan of the band’s performance, returning for an encore and finally going “over to that table and sell(ing) you guys sh*t.” The crowd cheered in response, humored and seemingly in agreement with this plan.
“We’re Drugdealer, we’re just here to have a good time,” Collins said.
Before getting into the first song, Collins recounted a story of a performance in Berlin where he laid on the ground after the keyboard collapsed when he yelled out to the crowd “Hey did you guys come here to talk about your grades at school? No you didn’t,” and then returned to his story.
Keeping in theme with the comedic nature of the performance, the band opened with “The End of Comedy,” off their 2016 album of the same name.
Sasha Desree took over on vocals for the song, singing in a higher pitch to imitate Weyes Blood’s singing on the studio version. Aside from featuring a different singer, the song’s live version had a different, more layered sound with lead guitar solos from Mikey Long, the drumming of Josh Da Costa and bass from Jackson MacIntosh.
Collins introduced the next song, “Valentine,” by saying “for a little moment there Josh dated Tig Nataro, the comedian, and wrote this song about their relationship.” At the end of the song, Collins gave a fitting acknowledgment to his drummer.
“Let’s give it up for Josh, this guy has dated a lot of people … this guy has so many people’s Netflix and Hulu accounts we can just watch anything we want,” he said.
The band kept the show entertaining and light-hearted in between songs, with comedic stories, comments and attempts to fix the sound. Talking to the sound engineer while trying to make adjustments, Collins said “I really like you Russ … let’s smoke a cigarette, Russ, after this.”
At another point in between songs, Desree began playing ambient noises with the keyboard, while humming into the microphone.
After Da Costa introduced the band members to the audience, Collins acknowledged that some members got more applause than others: “I can tell there’s a really big Sasha fan club here and also a big Mikey one; I just want to say legally I wrote the songs, this is my music, thanks, my name’s Michael.”
“New Fascination” was another one of the songs Drugdealer played from the last album. The standout live performance featured two incredible guitar solos from Long that captured the soulful ‘70s rock sound that characterized the band’s last album.
After handing off the microphone to MacIntosh, who sang and played acoustic guitar for a performance of “The Real World,” Collins walked out the back door of SLO Brew, to “make sure that the outdoor area is safe.” A truly noble task.
Halfway through the song, Collins returned with a guest, who went on stage to whistle the melody of the song. “Let’s give it up for Carl, I just met him outside,” Collins said after the song ended and the crowd cheered.
For “Pictures of You,” Desree took over on vocals again, “inhabit(ing) the feminine goddess spirit,” as Collins said. The beginning of the song and Desree’s singing immediately drew excitement from the crowd.
Towards the end of the set, the band performed their most recent song, released just a week earlier, titled “Lip Service.” While keeping a similar upbeat tempo from their other songs, the live performance of this one took a turn towards a more garage rock sound, with a heavy guitar presence from Long.
After their “last” song, a cover of Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to Be Kind,” Collins said “Okay, we’re done, bye, see you,” and the band walked offstage. Luckily he lived up to his promise from the start of the show, and the band returned for an encore.
With Desree back on vocals, Drugdealer performed “Honey” and “Suddenly,” arguably their most popular song and the only one that turned the crowd into a mosh pit.
To conclude their 13-song set, the band played “Posse Cut,” a soulful funk jam, and even brought the venue’s entertainment director, Ryan Orr, onstage to sing along.
