Margot makes triumphant return

Show Review

Joe Ziemer

Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s
The Vogue
Friday, April 14

Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s highly anticipated return home brought the Indianapolis band back for the first time since their first album, The Dust of Retreat, was re-released on Artemis Records. The group has been touring the record hard all over the country, including stops at the Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest.

British rockers South took the stage before Margot and set the tone for the evening. The electric-driven rock band won the crowd over and set the tone for the evening to come.

Margot’s show started with lead singer Richard Elliott, accompanied only by Emily Watkins, performing a yet-to-be released track called “Tall as Cliffs.” On taking the stage, the rest of the band was noticeably nervous. They looked hesitant, almost too worried to disappoint the 700 fans who packed the Vogue to see Indianapolis’s most promising band in years. The full band set opened with “A Sea Chanty of Sorts,” the hauntingly beautiful opening song from their record.

As the set progressed, the band’s comfort level visibly escalated and started shining through during “On a Freezing Chicago Street.” The show took full stride and peaked during the raucous rocker “Quiet as a Mouse.” “Quiet” was, without a doubt, the crowd’s highlight of the night, a can’t miss single.

If you had stumbled into the Vogue during the closing number, “Barfight Revolution, Power Violence,” you could possibly have mistaken the band as a Polyphonic Spree knock-off, as more than 15 people took the stage. Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s invited both opening bands up to accompany them. The combined unit tore through the song to the crowd’s delight.