Show Review!: Young the Giant and Minus the Bear

First off, thanks to Daniel to the review of Everest. I mostly agree with him, they really were (to quote a review I read) "terribly loud, by which I mean terrible. and loud." The only point of discrepancy was that I thought the bass player was the worst part of the band (he really was just everything I hate about certain bass styles). Also, another thank you to him for taking some pics (and uploading them).



To start things off, we had Young the Giant (who formerly went by The Jakes). These guys are a small band from L.A. (their debut full-length will come out later this year). They were the band I was least looking forward to, from what I'd heard on their myspace they sounded like your generic-uninspired-soft-"indie"-pop-rock band. But, they were actually pretty good. They had really good energy (all the members of the band moved around the stage, switchin' positions and dancin' about) and I liked how the singer jangled about a tambourine or maracas on most songs. Also, the rhythm guitarist (seen in the right of the above pic) would dance about, sort of stumblin' and bumpin' into the other members, but you could tell that they were all really enjoying it and were all friends who were super psyched to be in a band, playing music and tourin'. They're definitely worth checking out and they're quite fun to see live (Daniel said he liked 'em more than Minus the Bear).

(Minus the Bear is a surprisingly bearded band)

On to Minus the Bear!! I was pretty excited for these guys. Even though I'm not the hugest fan of their new album (OMNI) they're among my favorite bands (mostly for Highly Refined Pirates, their 1st album), and their guitarist, Dave Knudson, is pretty inspirational, I think. They opened with Drilling (one of their best songs I think), and they kept a pretty good energy and feel going throughout their entire set. Their music is pretty mellow and relaxed for the most part, but it still felt pretty lively during the show, I think mostly due to their excellent drummer. They played a really nice mix of old and new songs (mostly old, and they played all the new songs I wanted them to), including a favorite of mine, Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo. They came back for an encore and played Into the Mirror, and Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse (arguably their best song, my favorite). And they had really good lights.

Here's my gripe with the show. Minus the Bear attracts rowdy bros. There was a guy and his friends who were pretty wild and yelling out lyrics and stuff a lot (the wrong ones too and at the wrong times) and dancing wildly/sort of moshing. He kept trying to justify it by saying it was his birthday and they were his favorite band, so I cut him a little bit of slack, but thankfully they calmed down after a bunch of people asked them to stop. There was also this other bro who was a total douchebag, knocking into everyone and just being a complete jerk. Basically everyone around him (including me) told him to fuck off and stop, but he wouldn't. However, he got what was coming to him when he kept yelling a song request and the singer told him to shut up and that he wouldn't do anything for a guy like him. And then when he kept being rowdy security pulled him out, so a big thank you to them. Anyway, overall a pretty good show.

- Alec

p.s. I sincerely apologize if I at all offended the "bro" denomination of our readers.