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.

Show Review! : The Antlers! (and Editors and The Dig)

First off, let me apologize for our very infrequent posting habits (almost a week in between!). We're pretty bad about this, but will probably hopefully get better.
Anyways, last night I popped into DC to go see the Antlers. They were opening for Editors along with The Dig, who played before them. I so very much like their album Hospice (released 2009) (it's definitely one of my favorites ever), plus I'd heard some live recordings (which were great) so I was quite excited to see them. But first, The Dig.

They're kind of an indie-pop band, and the couple songs I'd heard before the show weren't the greatest so I was kinda dreading their set. They started right when they were supposed to (which was really great, sucks standing around waiting) and basically played songs for 30 mins or so, very little talking. Their stuff was much better live, I liked it, and seemed like the crowd was digging it too.

Next, THE ANTLERS. man oh man, was I excited. They opened with Kettering, moved onto Sylvia, then Bear, Two, and ended with Wake. They played slower more atmospheric/shoegazy versions of Bear and Two, which I thought was good, cause the album versions sound a lil' too happy, I think (I actually prefer the album version of Two, though). They were really, really, quite amazing. Their show was more keyboard oriented which was just dandy. Plus, Wake is my favorite song of theirs and is just a completely great song anyway. My one complaint is that their show was not as emotional as the record. Partly because of the arrangements of the songs, but very much also because of the crowd. A lot of people weren't there to see them, and these two asian ladies pushed their way in front of me and kept talking and looking through the crowd the whole time (thankfully they were really short).

Editors. meh. They sound soooo much like Interpol. Their show was pretty enjoyable, everyone was moving and they played several of the small amount of their songs that I actually know, so that was quite nice. However, they completely overloaded their show bass-wise, it was really poundin into ya.

All in all, a good night.

Wake - The Antlers

Two - The Antlers

- Alec

Show Review! : Of Montreal!

(not our picture, and not actually of the show, but Kevin was dressed like this and all we had was a film camera)

A couple days ago, on thursday, we headed out to the club to check out Of Montreal! James Husband (Of Montreal's drummer) opened for them, but he was only okay, and pretty bad at times. I wanted to like them since he had a cello player up there but most of his songs sounded pretty similar, and weren't a good match with Of Montreal's catchy, dance-y pop music. He had one preeety sweet song though, but I can't find it anywhere sooooooooo who knows.

and Of Montreal - what can I say? If you've seen em before you know just how crazy they can get, and if you haven't you should get some tickets! Their set started with some guys in animals masks with intro music goin on before Of Montreal came in with Suffer for Fashion. They ran through a bunch of tunes compelte with ninjas sneakin' on stage with props and feather shooting machines before the end where Kevin Barnes got up on some cross thing and got stretched out. They came back out for the encore and ended with a Jackson 5 cover which worked out pretty well.

Kevin's voice was a little different from the records (a little more girly) but the playing was solid and the crazy weird show made up for it (although it was supposedly pretty tame for an Of Montreal show). They focused mostly on their newer albums but didn't play Wraith Pinned to the Mist, which was just fine by me.

Setlist if ya want it: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/of-montreal/2010/930-club-washington-dc-5bd76b34.html

If you haven't heard them, here's a smattering to get ya goin

Suffer For Fashion - Of Montre...

The Party's Crashing Us - Of M...

- Alec