I don’t know if I can say a whole lot more about The Evens’ show at the Pozen Center on Friday night in Boston that DJ didn’t say about The Evens’ show in Milwaukee, except this: at the end of the set, Ian MacKaye pulled the merch to the edge of the stage, hopped off, and started talking to the people in the crowd, right next to where I was standing. He immediately got mobbed by a group of younger guys, and I was more than happy to wait for them to finish talking to him (I mean, I’m not an “indie-rock grandpa” like our other reviewer apparently is, but I am swiftly approaching “Britpop/indie aunt” status) so I could thank him for the show and buy my CD.

But I didn’t have to wait patiently, because Ian MacKaye beat me to it when he turned from the guys suddenly and said hi.

This gesture hit home because, as a female music fan, the indie scene can often feel like the boys’ club of the new millenium. I’m sick of encountering interviews in which the band says, “uh, yeah, we’re doing this to get chicks” or ones where a band laments that the girls in the U.S. don’t flash them like the girls in the U.K. do–even when it’s a joke, it’s tired. I also hate going to shows where the guys get to be the aficionadoes but the girls are just decorative fixtures. When Ian MacKaye turned toward me and looked me in the eye, I felt like that whole stupid system was leveled. I felt like I was recognized as someone who had as much of an interest in and opinion about the music as the next, well, guy. And, from an awesome, spare punk band where a chick (Amy Farina) and a dude (MacKaye, duh) share the vocals and divy up the other musical tasks, I wouldn’t have expected any less.

During their set, MacKaye–as he did in Milwaukee–encouraged us to talk to the band, sing along, and add to the show. He discussed the barriers between performer and audience, with an added twist–he ventured that the barrier the audience puts up sort of creates a space in which the music is treated not as an interactive experience but as entertainment. But, said MacKaye, “music is serious… it’s not entertainment.” I think that his statement points to a rift in the biz today. The guys (or girls!) in bands who are in it for the chicks first and the music second are there to entertain; the bands who put their aesthetics first and their libidoes second (or at least find a way to creatively combine the two) are in it for the music.

Though The Evens WERE entertaining between songs–Amy Farina kept asking if the cowbell was loud enough, then said ”maybe more wood block?”–they weren’t doing it in hopes of our adoration, but rather, in an attempt to keep a dialogue going. Because it would have been easy to be speechless–when Farina was stomping on her pedals and MacKaye was bent over his guitar, it was clear that they were serious.

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