At Last: The Residents Trip Stubb's Out

Ever had a fun nightmare? The Residents make yours come true. Talking Light, their first tour in two decades, descended upon Stubb’s Tuesday night, wracking brains and bodies of everyone from the fans who’ve waited twenty years for this moment, to the ten-year-old boy who evenly declared, “I’m not old enough to have seen them twenty years ago.” The wait yielded a writhing body in a wrinkled old man mask with a protruding nose, backlit in vertical stripes and black-and-white patent leather clown shoes. Though he introduced himself as “Randy,” we don’t know who The Residents are. Since 1976, they’ve been performing to cult audiences without revealing their identities. This is not the cloak of anonymity so much as a cohesive creature called The Residents which, despite the fluidity in line-up over the years, remains an unmistakable entity whose wild concept albums contort history and mythology the way their live frequencies mess with our ears.

Opening with “Demons Dance Alone,” Randy sings like the angry gurgles from beneath the Earth, ready to crack and lash at any moment. A fireplace decked with gingerbread houses allow the set a homey feel, but the round screens behind quickly rip such feelings asunder when they flicker to life, revealing visuals that bring Randy’s grotesque stories all too close. His first story, “Talking Light,” crackled with images of an unearthed baby skeleton holding a wedding ring, while a humanoid who looked made out of dry, cracked mud insisted on the truth of his painful tale. Later, as “Chuck” and “Bob” rolled out a haunting electronic tangle of uniquely spooky melodies, dutifully hidden behind black vinyl, black wigs, and oxygen masks, another head appeared on the screen. Her eyes inflated and sunken with a doll’s mouth, she gleefully recounted, on the phone to Dr. Phil, the stomach-churning story of how her lover came to fill an entire room, flesh folds three feet deep that eventually resulted in said lover’s death. Forklifted corpses with pieces falling onto the street are hard for anyone to stomach, but the genuine emotion behind the girl’s words, coupled with the bizzare, morbid but cheerful ending, made the experience of this song a visceral and complex one befitting the Residents’ well-earned reputation.

Longtime fans will be pleased to know that inside of a twelve-song set with a modest double encore, their oeuvre was impressively represented. Wormwood, Gingerbread Man, Fingerprince, Stars and Hank Forever, Animal Lover, Freak Show, Cube-E, and The Big Bubble all received their due alongside Talking Light. When Randy’s voice isn’t bubbling up from the depths of the Earth’s crust, he makes a memorably screechy crone. And you might not want to look at your reflection for a while after hearing him talk about mirrors - the Mirror People he knows all too well are not only present, but poised for attack. A lot of danger talk spills down from that stage, but the Residents are worth the risk.