The Middle East presents: Rendez-Vous, Gossip Collar - 18+, $20 advance / $25 day of show, 5pm doors We left Rendez Vous in January 2020 after a sold-out show at La Cigale in Paris. We find RDV in February 2024 with Sheer, first single from Downcast, their new album due before summer. Back to writing in a context even more poisonous than when Superior State came out, their first full-length released in 2018 which catapulted them to the forefront of a certain scene claiming to be as much new wave as industrial. After a tour of over 100 concerts in 14 countries, including appearances at major European festivals such as Sziget, Fusion, Dour and Paléo, the band has radicalised their work of transcribing the world’s violence, stripping away its synthetic trappings to keep just a suit of guitars on a steel skeleton. Freed from the codes of post-punk, enamelled with glitches and digital distortion, Sheer sounds like a fight to the death between man and machine, two enemy brothers who want to hug as much as they want to choke each other.   NO VAPING OR SMOKING IN THE BUILDING