Declan’s sophomore album, Zeros, a salute to British punk and glam rock with some searing political commentary, seems perfectly placed in the chaos of 2020 when it was released. But the record translates well to the stage, and it’s no mystery why, two years after its debut, McKenna fills venues across America, his avid fans eager to experience the album live, seeming to know every word to every song.
Of course standby hits like ‘British Bombs,’ ‘Why Do You Feel So Down?,’ and ‘Brazil‘ were met with screams from concertgoers intimately familiar with the young singer’s catalog— but the star of the show was The Key to Life On Earth: a song about gentrification, belonging, and questioning the mundane requisites of life on Earth (whose circumstances are linked inexorably to class), the performance of which is a generational anthem in front of the warped, checkered Zeros U.S. tour backdrop, sounding remarkably similar to the studio recording, given all its timbral effects.
McKenna’s 4-piece band packs a disproportionate punch in songs like ‘Twice Your Size’ and ‘Rapture,’ filling the Warehouse Live Ballroom acoustically, but perhaps more importantly, and refreshingly, with the energy you’d expect from the cultural descendant of protest rock, punk, and post-punk bands of the 1970’s and 80’s.
The show ran through the entire track list of Zeros and finished with an encore of all his hits ending with ‘British Bombs’ and a smashed Union Jack guitar— His outfit, a skin-tight vinyl catsuit, dramatic spot lighting, and accessories—drawing the crowd into his glam rock world throughout. Houston, with its endless space iconography and history seems a perfect closing spot to an American tour for a galactic concept album about the cosmos, black holes, astronauts; and more aptly, politics, class warfare, and surviving life on Earth.
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