BY FRED MILLS

It was a family affair for the Ettes tonight - literally, as frontwoman Coco Hames' parents were on hand to see their little girl who done good. I'm not being coy here; hanging out in the Grey Eagle's bar/food area and talking with Coco and her folks before the show, it was clear to me that they are exceedingly proud of her, and they proved it later by pushing up to the front of the club during the band's set, cheering and nabbing many an iPhone photo for posterity.

The Hameses split their time between Florida and Brevard, NC, about an hour from Asheville, so in that sense it really was a homecoming for the Ettes, who were pleased to learn that some family friends had also come out to the show, not to mention close pal and frequent collaborator Greg Cartwright of Reigning Sound. It's typically difficult to get rock musicians to talk candidly about how it feels when members of their family turn up in the audience, a phenomenon that may or may not be traced back to the whole notion of rock ‘n' roll rebellion (the point is to get out and get away from all that family, school and hometown drama, right?). Such is not the case with Coco, however, and she returned the favor towards the end of the show by stopping, acknowledging her folks standing over near the edge of the stage, and talking for a moment about them.

Meanwhile, back at the start of the evening, when Coco had to go outside for a spell to walk her little dog (did I mention that the band travels with a pooch, a well-behaved little gal that happily passes the set-time by snoozing in the dressing room? now I need to get a look at the Ettes' concert rider to see if it includes doggie snax...), I grilled Ma & Pa Hames about their daughter and learned, among various personal tidbits, that (a) she picked up guitar considerably late in life compared to most musicians - not that it shows onstage; and (b) the very first concert they took her to was Billy Joel, which is a factoid that will now have to be pondered while parsing with renewed vigor some of Coco's lyrics and melodies.

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The opening act for the Ettes' U.S. tour - which continues tonight, Sept. 3, in D.C. and wraps Sept. 4 in Long Island - is Hans Condor (above), a three-piece who, like the Ettes, is also from Nashville and who befriended the band not long after they moved to Music City USA a few years ago. (Ettes drummer Poni Silver directed a video for H.C. not long ago.) Similarities between the two outfits mostly ends with the word "trio," however, for while there has never been any shortage of volts and energy in an Ettes set, the Hans Condor guys were totally nonstop and over-the-top for the entirety of their set. Mental checklist: Motorhead, AC/DC, MC5, early Meat Puppets, classic James Brown.

That latter name-drop's not just incidental, either. Guitarist Charles "Chazz" Kaster in particular was a ball of fury, to the point where I half expected a minder to emerge from stage left bearing a cloak with which to drape Kaster and lead him offstage only to have the frontman break away for yet another paroxysm of unrestrained passion. He's a leering, screaming, knee-dropping, hair-swinging, guitar neck-choking, jump-into-the-audience-and-solo-on-his-back rock ‘n' roll primate clearly prepared for the eventuality of Earth transitioning to Planet Of The Apes with mere men being ruled by chimps and their gorilla enforcers. Speaking of which, at one point drummer Roger Holcombe leapt up on the stool of his kit and grabbed onto the ceiling beams above him, swinging back and forth to culminate in a final, grand, one-armed monkey swing. No doubt had someone tossed him a banana he would have taken a big chomp then used the remaining shaft of fruit to pound his toms. Bassist Erik Holcombe was somewhat restrained compared to his bandmates, but "restrained" is a vastly relative term in this context, as he was also a blur of motion, banging his axe, bellowing into the mic and manically shaking his curly dark hair like a young Kirkwood brother daring a circa-1982 hardcore audience to even breathe the word "hippie."

Together, Hans Condor blew through the Grey Eagle's music room at galeforce velocity, brutal yet tuneful, a thuggish melange of punk and garage and metal and soul that threatened to leave concertgoers' ears ringing so loudly that the Ettes would be forced to yank their knobs way, way up. Ettes bassist Jem Cohen tacitly admitted just that in the dressing room shortly before their set, noting that it can be risky to select an opening act for your tour when you've already witnessed firsthand that act's potential to blow the headliner clean off.

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No worries on that count. The Ettes delivered the goods, starting with a triple-threat set opener of "Excuse" (high-velocity Wicked Will standout track - and, incidentally, the Ettes' quirkily awesome faux-low-budget video featuring comedian Patton Oswalt and directed by Tom Scharpling), "Dead and Gone" (one of the more memorable numbers from 2006 debut Shake the Dust) and "Reputation" (ditto), and running through nearly 90-minutes worth of nuggets - and Nuggets-worthy - material culled from their four albums and various singles. The new record's selections have been amped up a good deal for their live incarnations: "My Heart," already a big-beat slab of twangy garage, could now pass for a long-lost Ramones cover; the tribal, fuzzed-out "The Pendulum" is massive and filthy, with Cohen's fat, John Entwistle-worthy lead bass and Silver's neanderthal thump filling the room with low end; and "The Worst There Is," a haunted, acoustic guitar/piano-powered tale of regret and reflection on the album, becoming a feral, edgy, buzzing j'accuse rocker in concert.

Other standouts over the course of the evening included a thrash-worthy "Walk Out That Door" (from 2009's Do You Want Power) that had the guys from Hans Condor spilling over onto the edge of the stage and fist-pumping their way through the song, crunching renditions of "I Get Mine" and "Crown of Age" (look at Life Again Soon, 2008) and "Subject," a track that originally appeared on the '09 EP Danger Is and which, per the Nuggets reference above, hit its mark in vintage Standells/Seeds/Count Five fashion as filtered through a distaff sieve.

More to the point, though, tonight the Ettes brought all their extant strengths - power trio heaviness; the melodic instincts of true pop classicists; the no-nonsense hotwired energy of the Cohen-Silver rhythm section contrasting with the casual, almost aw-shucks chatty charisma of Hames - to bear while also meeting head-on the challenge of having a band of total fucking maniacs opening for them. By the end of the night there was an entire front line of fans crowding the stage, stomping, dancing, twirling and hollering, and if yours truly woke up the following morning with soles of feet aching and ears perilously abuzz, well, that's all right. I know it's only rock ‘n' roll, but I like it.