Show preview: The Whigs – Some songs you must check out from the Athens, Ga. band

If you ever perform live music, the one thing you want to hear is that you’re tight.

Now, “tight” in this instance doesn’t mean, “Hey bro, you sounded cool.”

No, if a musician hears that adjective, it more or less means that the band’s members were all on the same page. To the untrained ear, this is hard to notice. However, when the band performs that song from the album note-by-note, with each crevice and gap taken care of with no mistakes, you get what that person is talking about when he or she says “tight.”

In my days of concert-going, I’ve seen a lot of good bands, a handful of great bands, and less tight bands.

The Viatones, a five-piece ’60s rock throwback out of Lafayette, is one tight unit. Heartless Bastards, the band behind last year’s masterful Arrow, performed one of the tightest sets I’ve seen last year. The Tomatoes, who blew through town a couple weekends ago at Mud and Water touring behind its new EP Into the Blackout, were the tightest I’ve seen them in years.

Tight bands sound like they’ve been playing together forever. This is due to either hours of rehearsal or months on the road, playing that set of 30-45 minutes of music each night.

The Whigs, a rock ‘n’ roll band out of Athens, Ga., is another example of a tight band. For the past few months, the trio has toured behind the underrated 2012 disc Enjoy the Company. Earlier this year, the band played at The Spanish Moon, whirling through its set.

While the band has a knack for driving rock, they also have another thing a lot of bands miss—stage presence. Guitarist/singer Parker Gispert does this AC/DC-like strut during guitar solos. It’s awesome, but funny-looking because Gispert seems seven-feet-tall and wears his guitar near his chest like a member of The Strokes. Drummer Julian Dorio is a shoo-in for best rock drummer on the market thanks to his pummeling attack. Meanwhile, bassist Timothy Deaux holds the low-end down with grooving lines.

This Saturday, the band performs at the Varsity Theatre with Jason Martin and The Corner Pocket. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased here.

Below are some starter songs to get you initiated with The Whigs. Hopefully, after listening, you won’t think, “Hey bro, that sounds cool,” but “Damn, I need to see these guys rock.” Only then will you truly know the definition of every musician’s favorite adjective.