Just because the stage was in shambles and despite the belligerence, Friday night’s show in the narrow basement of the Delancey was an undeniable success, with the crowd won over by the rowdiness and camaraderie of the night. The Narrator’s apathetic nature is their most endearing feature, and this set showcased that characteristic ten times over. Blundering their way through a train wreck of a set after one too many rounds of whisky shots, they proved that the spirit of the show is much more important than technical prowess. A charming but sloppy band, even on CD, they made bewildered faces and rolled their eyes at each other as pretty much everything possible went wrong. Mics fell from stands repeatedly, cords became unplugged, cues were missed, lyrics were forgotten, deafening keyboard levels blew apart the mix, strings broke, and friends and acquaintances continually stole the microphones from the singers to do karaoke. The band went with the flow accordingly, and sprayed beer and laughed at each other along the way.

The loosest of the crew, bass player James Barron started the set standing on the drum riser and ended it laying flat on his back. Obviously miffed by Barron’s inability to play the songs correctly, let alone stand properly, the second singer/guitarist of the group Jesse Woghan embraced him in a brotherly hug halfway through the set as if to say, “C’mon, man, we can do this!” After staring bug-eyed into the lights and laughing uncontrollably, James dropped his bass and fell over again, this time in the center of the crowd. He dragged himself to his feet and started to give it another go until an audience member who had previously been climbing a pipe on the ceiling poured half of his beer in Barron’s mouth. In the time it took for the beer to make it to his liver, he had decided to leave center stage to seek solace in the corner, head in hands. Realizing that things had spun too far out of control, vocalist/guitarist Sam Axelrod quipped that they were glad the frat house found them entertaining, and the rest of the band continued onward as Barron gathered his wits.

Later, Barron explained that he had to sit those two songs out, not because he was barfing, but because he was taking a breather. Here are some bits from an hour long discussion with a surprisingly coherent and very friendly James Barron after the debacle:

AMG: What was going on in your head when you sat down?

James Barron: It was because I fucked up a bunch [laughs]. I just kept messing up and people were looking at me, and I was like, “Oh god! I gotta either quit this band or sit behind this amp for five minutes.” But people don’t even notice it generally. I’ll know when I’m playing a wrong note, but half the times the songs I play the worst are the same ones that people like most. I couldn’t even really hear myself up there, and the lights were bright, so I had to guess around. I’ve been doing this a long time, so I should at least hit the right note or be one sharp or one flat. There were definitely times when I looked down and realized it wasn’t right, but for us it doesn’t really matter. We’ve been doing this for six years without a booking agent — if people wanted to book us they would’ve booked as a long time ago — so we’re just going to keep doing our own thing. I have no one to answer to. Except for the rest of the band, but they’re always pretty cool with it.

AMG: You’ve been friends with the band for a long time?

James Barron: We’re all really good friends. I know Jessie and Sam really well, for like six years, and I know Kevin pretty good. I love everyone in the band. Kevin is the new guy, but he’s great. Sam is really laid back, and hard to get together, but I love him to death. Jessie can be negative and intense, but I love him to death, too. We fight all the time, but it’s never with anger. We’ll fight about stupid stuff like him critiquing my driving. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love those guys and I didn’t fucking love doing it. I’ll never get rich doing this. We’ve only sold like 200 records. People usually just download our stuff. That’s fine. I don’t care if people buy our record or not. But I just want people to come out and see us play and have fun. I’ve pretty much run out of money on this tour. I have no money, seriously. Like three dollars and 37 cents. I didn’t really eat anything today, and all I had was a bagel and a beer yesterday.

AMG: So when you have the option and you’re down to five bucks, do you usually get food or beer?

James Barron: Beer! The monks were right. The monks had it right. Sometimes I have a bagel, too, but I can pretty much survive off beer.

AMG: I got hit by a bagel that Sam threw earlier. It was like a food fight out there.

James Barron: Hilarious. I had no idea that was going on.

AMG: Who were all those people jumping on-stage with you?

James Barron: They’re all friends of ours… I think! I’m not sure… The bald guy was Adam from Oxford Ties. We met on tour. Yeah, we know him. We would have been fine with it even if we didn’t.

AMG: Half the time the mike was rolling around in the crowd.

James Barron: It was a pretty weird show. We’re pretty into having a good time. We don’t make any money at shows on tour, so we just have as much fun as we can. We just get one drink a piece as a band, so I went to the liquor store, and that’s probably why I’m so out of my mind wasted. We always play out and we have a lot of good shows, but tonight we fucked up and knew it. But we were all like, “Ah whatever.” Just keep playing. Jesse was like, “Play an E. Just keep going.”

AMG: Did this show meet your expectations?

James Barron: I have no expectations. We always do this shit, we always get drunk and have a good time, like “Aaghh!” We’re unprofessional, but we’re very candid all the time. But I feel like an asshole when someone says, “I drove from Madison to Minneapolis to see you play,” and we just played a bad show, because we’re just up there messing around. I mean, we take the music seriously, but we’re not going to throw a fit if something goes wrong. When I was a kid, I skipped out on a show I really wanted to see so I could see the Faint, but their lighting show went out and they cancelled the show halfway through. Who cares about the strobe lights? We met those guys later and they were really amazing dudes, but back then I was pissed. Anyway, the Narrator… the Narrator always plays… nonstop. End Quote [laughs].