By Artie Capshaw
We’ve all heard feedback verses, window-behind-the-stage percussion, deafening bursts of silence and the other ambient or environmental augmentations of small club rock.
But have you ever seen a band PERFORM them?
That’s the new trick of the salty dogs in The Acrobats of Etiquette. They used to crash parties, but now they’re prepared.

Last Wednesday’s set at the Bullfinch saw the Acs of Et approach a long vaccuumy point in their song “Foom!” A void opens up in the midst of pulverizing noise, setting ears on fire with the sudden onrush of calm.
We’ve seen AoE do this song half a dozen times. This time, when the silence hit, they played right through it, expertly miming their intruments so they weren’t actually hitting a drum or strumming a guitar, though it certainly looked as if they were.
The crowd whoop that ensued—there’ve always been whoops in the silence of that song, but this was different—added a whole new audio element of “Foom!”
Later in the set, the Acs pulled another acting stunt. The band has a song-concluding open-tuned feedback thing they do for “Coming Down.” When it came, they didn’t pretend to play it, as with the silence on “Foom!” They acted as if they affected by it.
They acted zapped. They acted electrocuted.
They acted.

Next at the Bullfinch: The Widder Browns and Point Sublime… At Hamilton’s: The Weird Circle and Twenty-Second Letter… At D’ollaire’s: Shadows of Fu (rescheduled)…