The Rusty Nail can be a tough room. I’ve seen some really good bands have trouble getting people to move there, or even getting them to make the journey to the hard-to-find space, deep within the forested campus of my alma mater, Lewis & Clark College in the first place.

For instance, New York’s Langhorne Slim—who headlined last Saturday’s show—didn’t do a half-bad job with their heady ho-down, especially considering that their tour van was in the midst of a four-hour tow job to pull it out of one of Lewis & Clark’s many muddy embankments. Yet, folks were standing restlessly, shifting their weight, not so much bobbing their heads, tapping their feet, or even looking on anywhere close to rapturously.

But Bainbridge Island (Seattle) five-piece Holy Ghost Revival was another story. These guys are rock ‘n’ roll time travelers of sorts. Last I saw them on Southeast 7th Ave at the best show of 2005, leadman Connor St. Kiley was imitating Robert Plant with enormous bell bottoms and straight blonde hair every where. Now, with a bandana on his head and cowboy boots he’s doing Axl Rose, right down to the side-to-side snake dance. But the music remains the same: most glorious glam, almost oddly medieval-sounding with its clean and proper keys.

St. Kiley played keys during the first few songs and then handed them off to Sebastian, a man so fair and delicate he looks like he would have been a prince had he a lived in another age. This shift allowed St. Kiley to display his scarred chest (perhaps some glass was rolled in on the recent European tour?) and launch himself into the crowd.

The 50 or so students and pilgrims up front were just waiting for St. Kiley to ignite them. When he stepped into them, they began jumping. Some hands were thrown into the air. Others lifted St. Kiley in triumph. He continued to sing to the couple of dozen stationary onlookers in the back.

The pandemonium lasted for about 20 minutes before St. Kiley announced, “We only have time for one more song.” People booed, but he continued, “It’s five songs long.” I thought he was joking, but sure enough, Holy Ghost played, “Dance of the Caterpillar,” “Ignight, Ignight, Goodnight…,” “Death Rydes,” and “Footlight Parade” back to back. Just as that last tune shrank to piano and vocals only, and St. Kiley sat on the stage as the tonic chord resolved, the band launched into “Fuk Boi,” the rowdiest song of the night, which was matched in energy by the crowd.

Then at St. Kiley’s request as well as much of the audience Clorox Girls bassist and vocalist Daniel Sayer and Justin Maurer took the stage for “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham (the CGs were on tour with HGR for the last couple of months). In the middle of the song, Maurer asked all the musicians to quiet down and said, “Since this is a Christian campus, we’re going to have a sing-a-long.”

Then he asked the audience to crouch which they did instantly, and together they sang “Koom By-Ya,” until Maurer stood and then he too was crowd surfed. I marveled at this kind of participation in the Rusty Nail. Although Lewis & Clark isn’t a Christian school, sometimes the students there are so careful mellow that it seems like it could be (truth is they’re just high on activism or weed). So to get a whole pack of them to jump around, sit down, and then jump around some more is quite a feat. This moment reminded me of Elliot Smith who was known to ask audiences in packed venues to sit down. Reaching that kind of power over the audience at the Rusty Nail was a job well done for HGR and their Clorox Girl guests.

Photo: St. Kiley looking like Axl and being crowd surfed somewhere other than Lewis & Clark. From the Space.