Pile and Oceanator @ The Boneyard in Chattanooga 9/26/24

Some shows are worth a walk through a Tropical Storm

I am soaked to the bone. My car is parked half a mile away in the outer bands of Hurricane Helene. The gravel parking lot outside The Boneyard has morphed into a series of gray-brown lakes. My shoes have holes in them, my socks are wet, and I am thrilled to be watching one of my favorite bands play at my favorite bar.

Inside The Boneyard, the foul weather dissipates from my consciousness, despite the open garage doors at the back of the venue. The place has that “intentionally dilapidated” look to it. A tinge of blacklight in the lighting illuminates the neon graffiti sprayed across the stage wall, car hoods and mirror tile wrapped trash cans hang from metal ceiling beams, the bartenders are quick, and the cost of beer is reasonable.

Attending the show this evening are the usual suspects at Boneyard. Nearly everyone is sporting tattoos, piercings, and a good degree of black clothing. As far as I can tell, most people here have an age starting with a two or a three, and are mercifully not college students, despite the bar’s reasonable proximity to UTC. It’s the perfect crowd for Pile.

Before Pile takes the stage though, we have the pleasure of hearing Oceanator, a hook-driven punk-ish band out of New York. I immediately see why Pile had them along. Their songs flit between pop-punk and post-punk, giving everyone enough hook to grab onto and enough complexity to chew on. The earlier portions of the set are a bit grungier, calling to mind a 90s sound, that is both rich and fuzzy. However, it’s the later part of the set that truly grabs hold of me. The final two songs launch into the room with thundering tom hits and a rumbling bass. What was once a punk outfit now morphs into a sludgy, almost doom-metal group. All that heft is perfectly balanced by Elise Okusami’s vocals. Her singing provides a clean anchor point around which all the instruments can swirl, leaving the room just enough to hold onto in the high-volume hurricane now taking place.

Having more than effectively warmed up the crowd, Oceanator makes their exit, and the stage descends on chains from the second floor, bearing the members of Pile.

After moving through the short, but welcome, compliments of the city and the venue, the band wastes no time launching into the show. As soon as the first notes reverberated through the building, I could tell we were in for a memorable night. Each band member was completely locked in, the mixing was stellar, and Rick Maguire’s vocals were as clear and bright as they were on the album recording. The volume sat right on the edge of comfort, where common sense told me to put in my ear plugs, but my need to hear everything kept them in my pocket.

Despite my high expectations for the set, Pile set about exceeding them in every way possible. They played hits like “Loops” alongside deeper cuts that saw the band flexing their muscles in a way that leaned more toward post-rock. I even got hints of Swans’ Michael Gira in a few of Rick’s more hypnotic vocal sections. His cutting clear voice added just a bit of shimmer to songs that grew ever more riotous and chaotic.

The band itself did more than just play well. Both the drummer (Kris Kuss) and the bassist (Alex Molini) served as the energy centers for onstage antics. Molini would wildly throw himself about the stage, seemingly lost in the music, while Kuss hit the drums with a force that should have broken at least a few sticks or torn a drum head once. The crowd responded to the energy in kind, tightening up around the stage and losing that awkward “oh am I standing too close to you?” feeling that inevitably accumulates in smaller venues like this. By the end of the show, everyone was clamoring for just a few more songs, and we did get one thanks to a slightly unclear stage exit procedure.

As the show wound down with that single encore track, and I trudged through the now fully submerged parking lot back to my car, I could only think how miraculous it was that this show happened at all. Chattanooga is not where you expect bands to show up, at least bands that aren’t local, and The Boneyard doubly so. Given that I fully expect Pile to blow up any second now, I’m happy I caught them on the way up, in my mid-sized city, at my favorite bar. It was well worth the walk through a tropical storm.