This is the review from Saturday Night's show. 22 years since they've been in D.C.<P><BR>Suicide At the Black Cat<P><BR>Alan Vega is Suicide's frontman, but at the Black Cat Saturday night it was<BR>keyboardist Martin Rev who made the pioneering New York synth duo's defining<BR>gesture. Staring impassively through oversize sunglasses, he faced the audience<BR>rather than his keyboards, sometimes playing with just one hand while keeping<BR>the other in his pocket.<P>Rev has always taken this approach, although his insouciance had a larger<BR>effect on the sound when Suicide began performing in the pre-digital early<BR>'70s. These days, the bulk of the instrumentation comes from programmed loops<BR>and beats, so that Rev's anarchic assaults on his gear -- which he played with<BR>his fists, knuckles and the backs of his hands -- didn't impede the momentum.<P>Of course much of the music's drive came from Vega, whose chants were as<BR>hypnotic as the cyclical synth figures. Looking a bit like Joey Ramone's<BR>burned-out older brother in a hooded jacket and maroon-tinted shades, Vega<BR>prowled the stage, occasionally interrupting his urban mantras with shrieks.<BR>From early songs like "Cheree" (given a sort of "Spanish Harlem" backing track)<BR>to new ones like "Misery Train," the themes were bleak and bristling. Yet Vega<BR>himself, once a confrontational performer, has become avuncular. When not<BR>delivering cryptic communiques from the dark side, he instructed the audience<BR>to work hard, to take care and even not to drink and drive.<P>Suicide was preceded by two local bands, the Scene Creamers and Measles Mumps<BR>Rubella. The former is a funk-rock outfit whose sound is keyed to Michelle<BR>Mae's bass and the dueling falsettos of singer Ian Svenonius and guitarist Alex<BR>Minoff; the latter plays early-'80s British dub-funk-punk as cogently as most<BR>of the Brooklyn bands currently looting the same storehouses<P>
