YouTube Rodeo: Archers Of Loaf Defeat Rock And Roll

With the Dinosaur Jr. reunion and others now bearing fruit, we've started to fantasize about other bands we want back from the '90s. While we weren't crazy about their final record, Archers Of Loaf pretty much tops the list (especially since we are ambivalent about the Crooked Fingers full-lengths). We saw their last tour at The Trocadero in Philadelphia, but we saw it from the balcony as best as we can remember (time was they didn't serve beer on the floor of The Troc, so all the big kids were sequestered to upstairs or to the back of the floor, and we think we opted for upstairs). Anyway, this clip captures Archers Of Loaf at the top of their game and not too long before they broke up. The clip is one of 13 that YouTube user Alphakub has uploaded of an Archers show in Iowa City.

The video and sound is very good at times, and it is shot at an excitingly close range so that the band members veer in and out of the frame. We've selected this clip of the band's encore from the show in particular because of the performance of "Audiowhore," from the band's absolutely perfect 1994 EP The Archers Of Loaf Vs. The Greatest Of All Time. We saw the band open a show in Charlottesville, VA with this number in 1996 and the small basement club almost blew apart. By the end of the song there were literally people hanging off the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Nuttiness. Anyway, this Iowa City performance ain't too shabby either. And so it was that on Oct. 22, 1998, The Archers Of Loaf defeated rock and roll. The band apparently broke up a month later.

Make sure to check out the Archers Of Loaf MySpace drive-thru linked below. It is offering downloads of live versions of "Harnessed In Slums" and "Audiowhore" from the Vitus Tinnitus release, among others.

Archers Of Loaf: InterWeb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr