Show Review: Rogue Wave, Gamble House, Bear Crossing

Thanks to my friend Alex, who came through with a free show ticket, I went to a show last night not knowing any of the bands playing.  There was something about the spontaneity of it all, and that it was free, that let me keep an open mind to the music. However, it was apparent that none of these bands should be together in the same venue.

To use a metaphor, this show was like an open invitation house party.  The openers Bear Crossing were like the creepers that you don’t want in your house in the first place, who don’t really belong there and just want to pound beers as they pound their fists in the air.  Their style is like a hard rock Muse — not entirely mindless, but completely devoid of anything really technical or ear-catching.  Their stage presence was pretty lame too:  80’s rock star theatrics such as the frontman lifting his guitar up while he “shredded” just came off as cheesy, his jokes weren’t funny, and every now and again he’d hold a hand to his ear, as if he was expecting any member of the audience to know the lyrics.  That being said, they’re a local band with time to develop and aside from their goofy stage antics, they were pretty tolerable.

Gamble House were like the people that show up from another school that you don’t really know except through a few mutual friends.  As mentioned on this blog before, their Grizzly Bear by-way-of-LA sound was awesome to hear live.  At this early in their career though, it’s obvious that they are far from great.  For starters, for most of their set the songs were aimless—everything sounded nice, but everything was messy and nothing ever stuck with you.  At any random corner they’d throw in some Grizzly Bear style “oh ohs” but they just felt like they stuck them in the song for the fuck of it.  It wasn’t until around the end of the set that they played their best material that really made you groove.  It would be awesome to see them step out of Grizzly Bear’s shadow and stand on their own two as a great band.

Rogue Wave were the veteran partiers, the “old heads.”  Apparently they’ve been around for about 6 years and have a handful of albums under their belts.  They’ve got a tight live sound and played a pretty lengthy set.  But it’s probably worth saying that there’s a reason that tickets to their show was given away for free by The Norva. To be honest I have never had the desire to check them out and for being in the indie game for so long, they should be way bigger than they are.

At the end of the day though, I’m glad I went to the show, if only to see Gamble House and to see what the big deal was about Rogue Wave.

- Ryan

Interpol @ The Norva

I’ve been waiting for this night for awhile and even longer to see this band who I’ve enjoyed for so long. The opening band Twin Tigers played a pretty nice set and their sound fit well to open for Interpol. But I won’t discuss much on them. They weren’t bad at all but they weren’t amazing.

The moment finally came for Interpol to hit the stage. Opening with a new song from their up-coming album showed just how much you didn’t even need to have ever listened to a song by them to tell its they’re good at what they do. They followed the new with an old classic, Evil. As soon as the bass kicked in everyone knew to follow with, “Rosemary!”. It was amazing and the crowd was a good one to be a part of.

They continued sprinkle in a couple new songs here and there but the majority of their set was the good oldies everyone loves. With songs like PDA, NYC, and Narc in the set, anyone who knows Interpol knows that’s a set worth going to see.

Their encore was intense starting out with Leif Erickson and following with Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down. Both of which blew my mind at how good these guys are at putting on a show and playing great music. Last but certainly not least, my personal favorite, Obstacle 1 was their closer. The fast upbeat tempo and everyone screaming, “She can read! She can read!” was so intense. This was definitely a show to go see and if you missed out then you should regret it. But on a lighter note the boys in Interpol will be back soon after the release of their new album next month. 

-Trey

Show Review: Devendra Banhart & The Grogs


(Some of you might be wondering who The Grogs were and why they didn’t open — they are actually Devendra Banhart’s backing band)

Devendra Banhart was arguably one of the best performances that I’ve seen in a while.  Among all the greatest shows I’ve ever witnessed (Grizzly Bear, Mute Math, and Phoenix quickly come to mind), the one thing common to all of these shows was the performance aspect of the show.  These are all talented musicians who blend in their technical skills in their instruments with good humor and crowd interaction.  Devendra was even nice enough to let a fan play a song onstage. 

Devendra balanced his set out midway with solo songs from his early days.  They were still pretty intense as his voice simultaneously rose with the guitar.  Still, even though all those purist fans wanted to hear the old, stripped down stuff, it was the full-band songs that really caught the crowd’s ears (and arms and feet).   Opening with “Baby,” a popular single, he also touched on “Lover” (of course), “Long Haired Child,” “16th & Valencia,” and a 10 minute “Seahorse.”   

To wrap things up, what’s best about the whole set is how clean the songs sounded.  Devendra and his band got set into groove after groove for the entire night and it all sounded pretty flawlesss. 

Devendra Bahart - Long Haired Child

- Ryan

Show Review: HARD Summer Tour @ 9:30 Club, DC

The HARD Summer Tour is a dance tour that hit just 10 dates around the US and 2 in Canada.  With Crystal Castles from Toronto headlining, they were backed up by UK DJs Rusko and Sinden, and Destructo, a DJ born in Washington, DC. 

Sinden and Destructo, pictured above respectively, played “the warmup shit” of the night.  Their basic setups were the same, a laptop and a bunch of boards to mess with the sounds.  The beats sounded fresh and consistent for most of their sets.  Me and Trey stayed on the balcony for the early part of the show.  But actually getting down into the crowd lets the energy of the music and everyone dancing take hold of you.

You might not ever appreciate bass until you hear it pouring out of the monitors of a dance show like this. The whirring bass of dubstep is just something that has to be witnessed live.  It was enough to distort the sound quality on every video that I tried to take during Rusko’s set (well, it’s probably that way for every digital camera not dedicated to HD audio).  It was enough to even vibrate the hair on your skin.

Crystal Castles took down that long rectangular projector screen in the first picture, and it was nice to see them less guarded than their DJ openers.  Lead singer Alice Glass brings the energy of punk rock to an electronic dance setting and it works perfectly.  She crowd surfed basically all night as they played most of their hits from both of their same titled, self-titled albums. 

Dance shows are fun to get into as long as you don’t stand around stiff the whole time and miss the objective to why you came to a dance show in the first place. 

- Ryan

The XX @ 9:30 Club show review.

Last Tuesday, on October 5th, I was able to attend The XX’s show at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. thanks to my good friend Melanie. If you’re reading this Thank you so much again Melanie!

Fortunately for us, we made it in to the venue right as Warpaint was setting up. Let me just say I love when I’ve never heard a band before, see them play live, and they end up blowing me away. Warpaint did just that. This all lady band jammed out for an amazing set that had me running to the merch table to try and get a copy of something of theirs. Their ambient rock sound was a great start to the night.

Without much time between the end of Warpaint’s set, The XX took the stage with of course their “Intro”. It’s kind of hard to describe the intensity of hearing that thing live. They followed with Crystalised which got the crowd moving and singing right along. They then followed up with my personal favorites “Heart Skipped A Beat” and “Basic Space”.

Everything about the show was amazing. Even with the simplicity of their music, hearing them play live was intense. Their set was clean and loud with a little added dance interlude nearing the end of the show. They played nearly their whole album playing Fantasy, Shelter, VCR, and Islands just to name a few.

To end their show, they played the slow jam Stars in which the whole background of the stage lit up with stars like a country field at night. All in all the show was definitely up there with the best ive seen. While The XX don’t have the biggest stage presence, their overall sound, and the mood they set is phenomenal.

-Trey

SUFJAN STEVENS at THE NATIONAL, RICHMOND, VA REVIEW (November, 9, 2010)

Where to begin…

Well, 8:00 pm hits and Sufjan Steven’s band pianist and vocal backup, DM Stith, whom I’ve never heard of, begins a finger picking spree under low and warm lights. With a couple of mics, and a guitar, I didn’t know what to expect at first, but I was quickly surprised to find my eyebrows raised and wanting to run out and buy 100 copies of anything this man has created. With wonderful guitar skill and unbelievable folky vocals to match, this man was truly something else. (Makes me wonder if Sufjan’s entire band is this talented.) One of the biggest highlights of DM Stith’s performance was a looping mic in which he would sing wordless vocals and layer them over and over to pretty much blow your mind by the third sound he looped. Playing only four songs did Stith plenty of justice and have definitely put him on my radar for a long time.

After Stith’s set, the time had finally arrived for the man, the myth, the legend, Sufjan Stevens to perform. As he walked out with his band in their unbelievably goofy costumes that would change nearly every song, it was gearing up to be the most intense and amazing show of my life. One of the most exciting things besides it being Sufjan Stevens who was performing, was his gorgeous backup dancers and a huge projector which portrayed images and video in great detail and animation representing each song he played in the background.

Opening with “Seven Swans”, a quiet banjo intro leads into Sufjan’s untouchable vocal stylings and totally blew me away. With the background which looked like stars falling from the sky, I could tell this was just the beginning of a mindblowing experience full of stories about “the beginning of the world, the end of the world, and the middle of the world.” says Sufjan.

Following “Seven Swans”, was “The Age of Adz”. Starting with that strange intro, this song ended up being one of my favorites. I personally love his new album and this song is no exception. The background appeared to be a journey through space and time while the earth was splitting and coming to an end. Right after the first verse, they end up cranking the volume up and blasting instrumentation which felt like an entire orchestra was on stage left me breathless. Next was a song of love and how the word is thrown around so carelessly Sufjan explained. “Too Much” was extremely fun to watch. The dancers and even Sufjan were getting down with what looked like an updated robot dance.

Next in the set was “Heirloom”, a great song to lead into one of my favorite series of songs he played of the night which were all off of Age of Adz, “I Walked”, “Futile Devices”, “Vesuvius”, “Now That I’m Older” and “Get Real Get Right”. Everyone of these songs were nothing less than incredible. “I Walked” was so much fun to be a part of, the soft words of “Futile Devices” definitely woke up anyone who wasn’t fond of the new album and showed them that he can still keep it simple and blow you away.

“Vesuvius” was one of the coolest songs he played simply due to the fact there was a huge volcano in the background and fiery lighting which made it appear as if the venue was ablaze.

After the onslaught of Age of Adzsongs, the mood quickly darkened and ”Enchanting Ghost” off of the EP he released this year followed. This song is so beautiful and only added to a fully stacked deck of cards and showing no one can touch Sufjan. During the song he actually inhaled one of the feathers from the wings he was wearing earlier and cut off mid song which was amusing, and yet he jumped right back in after explaining the situation. (LOL)

So if anyone is familiar with “Impossible Soul”, it is roughly a little over twenty-five minutes long and musically all over the place. I was curious to see just how they would perform the song. I was thinking they were going to be shortening it or stripping it down, and I was wrong. They battled it out for nearly half an hour including auto-tune robot vocals, amazing dance moves, and unbelievable instrumentation. My favorite part of this song, and where the whole venue turned into a gigantic dance party with beach balls included, is right when ”IT’S A LONG LIFE, ONLY ONE LAST CHANCE, COULDN’T GET MUCH BETTER, DO YA’ WANNA’ DANCE?!?!” come into the song. The answer to that question was apparently, “YES WE DO WANT TO DANCE!”, because the The National was rocking.

After nearly all new songs, it was about that time where Sufjan stayed true to his fans, and brought Illinois to the table. Ending the set with none other than “Chicago” where the audience were the just as much a part of the performance as Sufjan’s band. It was definitely one of the most incredible songs to be a part of.

After a short intermission, it was time for the encore! Which might I add was definitely something I never thought I would witness. The encore consisted of FOUR, yes, FOUR Illinois songs!!! Beginning with “Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois”, where Sufjan was alone on stage with only the lovely piano keys hitting and the vocals to match.

Next, was what I felt like was everyone’s favorite song of the night, “Casmir Pulaski Day”. Everyone sang along and made it one of the most memorable songs of the night. Following Casmir “…leads me right to Jackson.”, with “Jacksonville”, which sealed the deal on this being the absolute best show I’ve attended and probably will forever be.

Closing the performance was “John Wayne Gacy Jr”. If you know the song, you know the tone it sets just hearing the words. Multiply that feeling times a billion and you will still only get a taste of what it was to witness this. The only word I can think to describe seeing this performed is CHILLS.

“And in my best behavior I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid.”

If you ever get a chance to see a Sufjan Stevens show, I highly recommend you attend. It is a life changing experience.

-Trey