Second time this year photographing Future Nobodies at Bottom Lounge, and this show gave me what the last one didn't: real time and real light. My first outing with them ran rushed and dim, over before I'd gotten what I wanted.
This time the room was lit for it, and the set ran long enough to actually work with.
The lineup surprised me. Normally three or four members, they played this one as a two piece, and the sound held up anyway. Guitar came through bright and jangly, bass thick and melodic underneath, that New Order pull running through the whole thing.
Whatever they had running behind it, synths, sequencers, it sounded as full as I remembered them being on stage before.
I've said it before, this city needs more of this. Dark, danceable new wave like theirs is rare in Chicago, and rarer still when it's done this well.
Midset, a whole parade of fans and friends climbed up on stage for a stretch of dark, instrumental electronica, dancing their way through it as the lights turned blue, thin rays reaching out over the crowd. For a few minutes, it turned into an actual club night.
Editing through the photos tonight, I got to see this band the way I'd always wanted to. That first missed show finally got its due.