We are still without pictures due to this particular camera's technological peculiarities and my own inability to organize anything besides entertainment media. However, I want to make sure and keep Hope Chest's name in the limelight so that I can achieve my lifelong goal of being personally thanked in the liner notes of an album.
So, now that you know my blatant partisan bias (i'm no Althouse), you can take the following review with the appropriate grain of salt1.
Hope Chest were the openers and they did an excellent job. They did lack keyboards this go around and I forgot to ask why. They did their first three songs without a rhythm section which was neat but it did expose their biggest weakness which is getting Ray and Vera in tune together. They got their about halfway through the set but the first few songs their were moments that were not quite together. This was more noticeable without many other sounds to fill in around it. I did hear a lot of complaints from the other bands about the monitors and I can guess that did not help the situation.
After the initial songs, they added the rhythm section and they filled up the sound to their more stereotypically dream-pop sound. I love the song "October" and I really liked the new, to me at least, song "Your Huckleberry Friend." I liked the sound a lot better here than at Kimo's as well. I do like Vera's voice and thought that once she got more settled into the set she did a good job. She seemed a little lost at times though without a keyboard to occupy her. I heard whispered musings about a Canadian tour so hopefully there will be a chance to see a few more gigs before that.
The second band, Sianspheric, was louder. The crude description I came up with to describe them was that they sound like Radiohead without the interesting electric effects. Big wall of sound chords with singing that definitely got the shaft,i.e.. was completely indecipherable, courtesy of the Castle's sound system. They wereserviceablee but not quite overwhelming. Also, their existential dread of the 50 hour drive through the empty middle of America might have contributed to a somewhat melancholy performance. Who knows? Overall it was an enjoyable set but I didn't rush over to the merch table.
A Northern Chorus headlined the set and they were a little more conventionally unconventional. By this, I mean that they had your traditional rock band and then added the female lead who played cello and trumpet. Here again we were stymied by the sonic limitations and I could rarely pick out the cello from underneath the guitars. At any rate, they were fairly polished and I did enjoy their set. They played more fuzzed out songs and I wish they had done more with the trumpet because I thought it punched up a little more contrast with the whole process. Of course, I am also and always a sucker for instruments so I don't know that everyone would agree with me on that.
I will try and getpicturess up soon but I never seem to have the computer and camera in the same place. If that fails I will try and get The Strokes review up shortly.
Oh, one further unnecessary swipe at our dear friend Pinko Punkass, since I am "objectively made out of money" on my massive salary (approximately equal to a post doc's) I would certainly have spotted one entrance fee and quite likely even have bought one girly well drink so that you would temporarily quell the unceasing river of bull!® that otherwise flows.
posted by fulsome @ 11:07 AM
