Big Hurry w/ Triggers, Mount Peru, and DJ Gordy / Brillobox / Friday January 28th / 10 PM / $7

Words by Patrick Bowman

It was a frigid January night in 2009 when I first saw Big Hurry in concert, opening for the now-defunct Pittsburgh dance punks The Sexes, and Toronto pop pixie Lights up on the Brillobox’s second floor. I don’t think the band was any more than three or four months old at that point and only had a scrappy, self-produced cd-r to their name, handed out for free at the end of their shows.

Big Hurry / Gets Me Low
Big Hurry / Found Out
Big Hurry / Save Your Breath

To a crowd of about thirty, Kelly Tobias, Dani Buncher, Lenny Flatley, and Andy Wilkosz unleashed a searing, albeit raw performance that left me dumfounded. My faith in the Pittsburgh music scene wasn’t as devout then (I only had the great Key Party Compilation to use as a primer) as it is now, but with Big Hurry crushing a local show right in front of my eyes, I couldn’t help feeling like I stumbled onto something truly special. I was just beginning to write on my old Pittsburgh music blog Speed of the Pittsburgh Sound and couldn’t wait to get home and churn out a loving interpretation of their performance of two early hits “Save Your Breath” and “Found Out,” described below:

Both songs howl, scratch and groove, leaving little room for contemplation or rational thought. This music intuits the patterns of passion, celebrating impulse as cathartic release. This is not the illusion of seduction, it is the document. You can’t help but appreciate how Big Hurry allow pleasure and pain to coexist so closely within their songs, knowing very well that temptation is best when its unstable, prone to smokey disappearing acts on a nightly basis.

If you can’t tell yet, their performance left an impression on me. In the coming months, I got to see that little CD-R evolve into the group’s 2009 Silver Screens EP, a sterling (no pun intended) example of Big Hurry’s signature sound, polished and gleaming for public consumption. That sound was described so aptly in their original MySpace profile blurb as such: “The Smiths having a street fight with Pat Benatar in the year 4000.” Tracks like “Tell Me,” “Found Out,” and “Silver Screens” were fiery compositions thick in sinister atmosphere. Buncher’s ass kicking drums and Tobias’ femme fatale vocals composed the group’s backbone, while Flatley’s bass and Wilkoz’s guitar filled in the gaps with a sexy, mutated slog: shining beautifully one minute, absorbing light in a searing wall of noise the next.

The EP captured everything I loved about their live show in six songs; they weren’t afraid to fucking strut their shit and nail a raging tantrum like “Found Out” to the back of a concert hall with a sledgehammer. Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t arrogant people, but Big Hurry’s music has swagger with a diamond sharp edge, grounded in just the slightest hint of vulnerability that allows their sound to coalesce and harden. To do that in Pittsburgh, amidst the scores of sometimes too precious indie pop and alt-country groups, causes one to sit up and take notice.

It’s now early 2011 and the band is back with their second EP Gets Me Low, prepared for release at their Brillobox show this Friday. I don’t want to ruin that EP’s surprise by doing something as dumb as talking about it for another 200 words (and also because I’ve already revealed too many of their secrets), but I will say that 2011 is poised to be a big year for Big Hurry, so you better start paying attention. Don’t. Miss. This. Show.

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Filed under: Homegrown Goodness, Live Music