Live Review: Elf Power

Download: Elf Power - "Spiral Stairs"
Download: Ham1 - "I Wave Back"

Currently, I'm living in State College, PA on a National Science Foundation/NASA grant. It's a sleepy little town full of great drink specials, the people who take advantage of them every fucking night, and absolutely nothing else.

Or at least that's what I thought until last week when I noticed a flier for an Elf Power concert at a local hookah bar called Chronic Town. Three things should give you pause about that last sentence: 1) This one-horse hell has a totally ballin' hookah bar. 2) It's in Pennsylvania, but named after R.E.M.'s first album. 3) Elf Power is playing there.

It's a little weird –I'm still not sure why they'd want to play in the exact geographic center of PA rather than Philly or Pittsburgh- but I can swallow the premise if it means I get to sample some of Georgia's finest.

The show opened up with Ham1. . Their most recent CD is up for free at Ham1.org and it's vastly better than their live show. I'm really into weedy white guys, but these dudes droned on in a dead parade, too uncharismatic for even me to handle.
Moving on, Elf Power was really frustrating. Briefly, the show was a B+ presentation of C material. As someone who was really not into their last two albums, it would be really easy for me to spend the rest of this piece picking holes in the songs themselves, but I won't.

I will, however, pick holes in their set list. The band puts on a marvelous show. They're not an eye candy band, but they've got a lot of enthusiasm and even the dullest songs off of In A Cave and Back to the Web sound at least moderately compelling with the rough finish of a live performance. Compliment of the year? No, but I haven't listened to In A Cave (which I initially enjoyed) since it came out and I have Back to the Web deselected in iTunes. Cave is just the type of album that I feel aggressively ambivalent about, and Web is irritating in a very nebulous way. I recognize that they're touring behind the new album, but the complete lack of any old classics was really quite disappointing.

The show wasn't a total bust, though. When the songs from In A Cave were sped up and the drums turned up, a lot of the pacing issues that plagued their most recent two albums were resolved. The bottom line is this: catching Elf Power is worth it for serious fans of the band who dug the new album. About half the crowd walked out during the set– and you can smoke indoors in PA, so they weren't just craving cancer.

Elf Power MySpace Page

(April Wright)

Live Review: Shearwater, The Mansion, Chicago, IL (6/24/08)

(Shearwater)


Last night, I caught one of most solid triple bills of indie art-rock perhaps ever conceived. Well, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole, but it was a very enjoyable show. Shearwater, Frog Eyes, and Evangelicals all brought their A game to Chicago's The Mansion, a former residence turned into a live venue. The Mansion has been open hardly a year, so I was highly curious about what a show there would be like. The venue consisted of high ceilings and the not-quite 18th century design that would befit an evening of baroque indie-music performed with the focus of a veteran chamber ensemble.




Up first were Evangelicals. On record, (that being their debut The Evening Descends, the band frequently is compared to The Flaming Lips, for merely being psychedelically-inclined and for being from the same town. Live, Evangelicals are more muscular, suggesting a musical universe where Joe Strummer embraced otherworldly soundscapes and Beatles-esque songcraft in his post-Clash, pre-Mescalleros wilderness years. Evangelicals on the whole were tight, energetic, and wonderfully chaotic. This shot, low-quality as it is, should give you a pretty good idea as to what you can expect should you choose to see the quartet live in concert sometime soon.


(Evangelicals)

Download: Frog Eyes - "Idle Songs" (via Stereogum)

If The Howling weren't already the title of a horror film from the 1980s, it could perfectly describe Frog Eyes' set. And I'm not just saying that because dude is rockin' a beard and howls at the rafters whenever he becomes passionately involved in his singing. Throughout their spectacular set, the band had a spellbinding presence that seem to border on supernatural. Their brand of spectral indie-rock haunted and captivated the Mansion audience. The group is playing the Triple Rock on Thursday. If you decide to attend, it surely will be a show that you won't forget. And not because the band turns into wolves and murders the audience, Dethklok-style. Except I mean metaphorically and musically.

Buy tickets for the T-Rock show here. Show is 21+.


(Frog Eyes)

Last up was Shearwater. Jonathan Meisburg's voice was so powerful and piercing that mere amplification could not contain it. As the band adeptly switched instruments to play selections from their last two creative breakthroughs, Palo Santo, and this year's Rook, the amount of focus to detail--in terms of arrangements, song dynamics, and songcraft--was simply astonishing. Precision and control are key words to describe the Shearwater live experience. The group performs with a flexible discipline that allows warmth and heart-rending humanity to creep into songs which are orchestrally impeccable. The band is playing tonight, with The Haves Have It, at the Entry. It is a show you do not want to miss.

Here are more photos:












Shearwater play tonight at the 7th Street Entry. Tickets are $8 for an 18+ Show. Buy them here.

Buy their album here.

Shearwater MySpace Page
Frog Eyes MySpace Page
Evangelicals MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)
jon@minneapolisfuckingrocks.com

All photos by Jonathan Graef.

Live Review: R.E.M., Modest Mouse, and The National, at Chicago's United Center

(R.E.M. with Johnny Marr - "Fall on Me" - Live at the United Center)
Via Stereogum

I realize it's a little late to get this review up, but hey, I just moved cross-country.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of catching R.E.M. with the National and Modest Mouse (and one Mr. Jonathan Graef). And out of the hundreds of shows I've ever seen, it was in my top five.

Really.

The National opened up and filled Chicago's United Center with sound just as well as they do in a club, despite a small bit of blurring on the horn parts. When translating their music to a live show, The National scaled up the rock aspects of their sound. In particular, "Squalor Victoria" stands out as adapting well to this more muscular live setting. Punctuated by Matt Berninger's howls of the titular name and flashes bright purple stage lights, the song exulted the band's rock influences. While I'm not generally a huge fan of large amount of stage production, seeing the whole band silhouetted against a steamy, multicolored night was pretty effin' sweet.

Playing mostly from Boxer, an album of A+ material if there ever was one, The National proved a tough act to follow for second openers Modest Mouse.

Let me make one thing clear: I really like Modest Mouse on record. A lot. After hearing rumor after rumor that Isaac Brock's voice has gone the way of the dinosaur, I was pretty nervous to see them perform. But they exceeded the expectations I had for them.

Still, it wasn't a very good set. A lot of the material came off We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which was a pretty good album. On disc. But live, it just sounded brash, flat and same-y, like they were floundering for depth that wasn't there. Compared to the richness of the National's sound, I just kind of felt bad for Brock & Co.

R.E.M., however, was, as always, fantastic. The thing that never fails to knock me flat when I see R.E.M. live is the way in which they revisit their past: The United Center show was as much a celebration of a lifetime of music as it was a celebration of a particular album.

Those who came to the show having only purchased Accelerate might have been a little disappointed. Eight songs (about 30 minutes) in the 2-hour set were from the new album, and they were thoroughly padded with older material. But what can I say? The material they played sounded stellar. The raw production value on the album gives you a perfect picture of what the songs sound like in concert. When I listened to "Supernatural Superserious" for the first time, I could picture exactly what the song would look and sound like live: Peter Buck hitting every note while jumping around in a way that no 40-something should be able to, Michael Stipe singing breathlessly while wiggling like a jellyfish and Mike Mills off to the side being the best bass player in existence. The new material didn't pull punches on the audience; it just singed them with the purest of pure rock and fucking roll.

Mixed in between songs off of Accelerate was a particularly stark, vulnerable breakdown of "Let Me In." Clustered around a piano, the band stomped and clapped their way through the normally fuzz-laden ode to his late friend, Kurt Cobain. (Stipe wrote the song to say all the things he wished he had said to Cobain before Nirvana frontman took his own life in 1994.) "Find the River," the closing track to essential canon entry Automatic for the People, showed up in a retooled format, sporting guitar in place of its standard accordian, updating it to fit with the band's current exuberant rock sound. Other songs, such as "Begin the Begin" were played exactly as they were written 20 years ago.

On this tour, R.E.M. is all about finding and creating cohesion in their catalog. The songs chosen for Friday night's show expressed political frustration and alienation, but also a great deal of hope (not least of all due to Barack Obama, to whom Stipe gave two enthusiastic shout-outs). As someone who has been disillusioned with the band's past few albums, but started to feel hopeful again with Accelerate, the United Center show was confirmation that a new, awesome, powerful chapter in R.E.M. history is beginning.

R.E.M. MySpace Page
Modest Mouse MySpace Page
The National MySpace Page

(April Wright)

Live Review: Rilo Kiley - First Avenue, May 22nd

Download: Spinto Band - "Oh Mandy"
Download: Rilo Kiley - "Draggin Around"
Download: Nik Feritas - "Sun Down"


Rilo Kiley, the poster children of popular indie rock, played a fantastic show to a packed house on Thursday, May 22 at First Avenue.

Opener Nik Freitas started out a relatively short set. He is someone I’m not too familiar with, but I enjoyed the few stray songs I’d heard here and there (mainly the happy acoustic tune "Sun Down," featured on the May release by the same title). I was partially expecting his set to be nothing more than quiet background noise as people trickled into the show, but was pleasantly surprised that his mellow music translates to something quite catchy and lively on stage. Freitas will be coming back to Minneapolis June 30 to play 7th Street Entry.

The Spinto Band are 6 dudes hailing from Delaware who seriously have one of the most oddly fun live presences that I’ve seen as of late, and jammed for 40 minutes right before Rilo Kiley. More often than not it’s a bit of an anticlimactic overkill to have a literal “crew” of band members occupying stage space, especially when the sound isn’t anything to write home about. The Spinto Band, however, brought so much energy with their over-exaggerated, synchronized Beatles body-swaying that it felt like one solid unit, all parties considered. Their sound is somewhere between Blur and modern day Beach Boys with their repetitious drum and symbol explosions high-pitched melodies.

Rilo Kiley experienced a boatload of backlash from hardcore fans and critics alike after its release, calling it "overproduced" and saying that the band had abandoned their profound, heartfelt songwriting skills and in exchange were creating music that sounds like an empty, poorly executed homage to 1960s pop music. I know I’m in the minority by saying this, but I think Under the Blacklight is actually quite a fun, eclectic album, and seeing RK perform those songs live only solidified that opinion. They opened with the sexy, howling ‘Close Call,’ following it with a few more new songs that really exhibited the variety of sound of style that RK are actually capable of pulling of. Jenny Lewis sung her little heart out in all her adorable red-headed glory, but Blake Sennett stole the show with his phenomenal guitar work on songs like ‘The Moneymaker’ and bellowing background vocals on old favorites like ‘Pictures of Success’ (which was definitely a major highlight of the night).

There’s a very good reason that Rilo Kiley’s popularity is continuing to rise; they are an extremely talented and diverse group of musicians, who play together like they were made for one another. Regardless of a few critics and old fans hating on the new avenues Rilo Kiley seems to be feeling out, there’s no denying that when you hear those new songs live, there’s no doubt that their execution is anything but empty.

Nik Feritas MySpace Page
The Spinto Band
Rilo Kiley Myspace Page

(Tara Rogan)

Live Review: Soundset 2008

Download: P.O.S - "P.O.S Is Ruining My Life"
Download: Aesop Rock - "Coffee (feat. John Darnielle)"
Download: Atmosphere - "Yesterday"
Download: Mac Lethal - "Pound That Beer"
Download: Blueprint - "Lo-Fi Funk"
Download: Brother Ali - "Take Me Home"
Download: Eyedea and Abilities - "Now"

While I can scarcely type due to painful sunburn on my hands, today I'm bringing you my Soundset '08 report. Obviously, I couldn't catch everything, but I got most of the good stuff.

Musab: While I've never been a huge fan of Musab on CD, I really enjoyed his stage show. The beats sounded great pumping through massive speakers, though I'm still not huge on his lyrics, which often vary between insightful and witty and just kind of silly.

Mac Lethal: How did this guy get on the bill? Yes, Mac, I'm aware that intelligent, educated men such as yourself would like girls like me better if we would just "chug that beer," but beer costs 12 tickets and causes dehydration. Thanks, but no thanks.

Blueprint: The first really standout performance of the day. The most impressive thing about Blueprint has always been his freestyling, though after working with RJD2 on a few albums, he's now got a great thing going on with his records now, too: Blueprint has a polished sense of rhythm and lyrics that express frustration with what has become of mainstream hip-hop without getting too preachy. Inject hot freestyling into that, and you've got the recipe for a powerful performance.

P.O.S.: Local fave P.O.S. is someone who I've always meant to catch, but because he tours so much, I end up putting it off. And now I regret it. Despite hearing mixed reactions to his live show, I'm happy to report that P.O.S.'s punk-inspired brand of rap translates very well to a live setting. A little bit of an awkward performer, P.O.S. differentiates himself from other rock-inspired acts by incorporating more diverse rhythmic elements, which, in the end, helps him avoid sounding like Limp Bizkit.

Eyedea and Abilities: I don't know what was going on, but no matter where we stood, this set sounded awful. It was clearly a sound issue, as my friends who were near the front said they sounded great. What a Pity.

Brother Ali: Do I even need to say that Brother Ali was one of the top acts of the day? While his beats sound just like the album, it's Ali's delivery that makes his show great. With his marvelously expressive voice, Ali brought his gospel of social change home to each and every person in the audience. Clear and strong, Ali radiates calm intensity, making it easy to believe completely in his sincerity.

Aesop Rock: Another performer marred by awful sound. I was really disappointed – Aesop Rock was one of the sets I was most looking forward to. Maybe one of you closer to the stage can weigh in how the set sounded from up there?

Atmosphere: Brought the house down. I'm perpetually surprised at the sense of authority Slug is capable of commanding over a crowd. I'm mean, look at the guy. Could he be any more of a stereotypical weedy white dude? But Slug's deeply introspective lyrics allow each and every member of the audience to put themselves in his shoes. There's something transfixing about the way that he manages to pound the crowd with rhymes that perfectly encapsulate the experience of young people everywhere.

Musically, Ant and the backing band were top-notch. The addition of Mankwe Ndosi calls to mind the Rolling Stones on later tours. Atmosphere's strength at this show was definitely the ability to move between a more straight-up hip hop sound and the style of more recent material without sounding forced or insincere. Atmosphere's set easily blew everyone else out of the water.

Listen to MP3s of some of the acts at the top of the post.

(April Wright)

Live Review: Tentacle Boy At The 400 Bar (1/31/08)

Download: Tentacle Boy - "Fly"

Last Thursday night at 400 Bar was the first live gig for electronic-pop duo Tentacle Boy, following three other diverse acts (industrial experimental band Combat Astronomy, funky guitar-friendly New Oceans and the synth-heavy Nobot). Nobot played a good set of fun, electronic jams that kept the crowd enthralled and the floor packed; the songs were heavy and intoxicating, with a unique blend of synchronized sounds and endearing vocals that truly sounded like robots speaking in electric beats and blips. It was a fantastic mix of rock and electronic pop.

Tentacle Boy immediately followed Nobot, bringing what would be considered a similar sound, but with something a little mellower to the table. Tentacle Boy are softer, balancing high and low-pitched sounds, and featuring echoing vocals and sounds reminiscent of water droplets. After seeing their video for ‘Nobody’ months ago on their Myspace page, I was really curious to see how they’d translate in real time. Live electronic music can be a tricky thing. At times it’s such a smorgasbord of random sounds that it comes out sounding like an exploding computer, and other times it can be loopy and dull, drowning itself in repetition.

Luckily, Tentacle Boy don’t fall into these categories. This being their first live performance, they could have easily been pegged for a band that had already gotten their feet wet in the local live circuit. Adam To and Chris Sexton played their keyboard-loving little hearts out, nailing their dreamy harmonies and their pulsing, aesthetically pleasing beats that I’d become addicted to when I’d first heard their recordings. Bass was interlaced on a few tracks, giving the sound an audible boost of energy just when it sounded like a song was slowing down. It’ll be interesting to see how Tentacle Boy develops technically the more their music matures both in a live setting as well as in studio. After their debut show, it should be safe to say that they are creating a name for themselves in terms of live performance.

Keep checking their Myspace page for more upcoming dates.

MySpace page

(Tara Rogan)

Live Review: OFFICE - 12/19/07

(OFFICE - Photo by Tara Rogan)

Download: Office - "Oh My"
Download: Via Audio - "We Can Be Good"

I don’t know if it’s the fact that 400 Bar is just a great venue, or if it’s pure luck that I always see fantastic shows whenever I go there. The Via Audio/Tigercity/OFFICE show on December 19 was no exception, as it was nothing short of wildly entertaining and extraordinarily diverse, both in terms of sound and the crowd itself.

The turnout was excellent, which I always like to see when there’s a night chock-full of amazing artists who are just starting to be seen and heard in a vast sea of indie-pop. Patrons ranged from young hipster kids to middle-aged wine drinkers who were looking for something different to do on a Wednesday night. It was a perfect crowd for this eclectic mix of bands who provide a little bit of something for everyone.

Via Audio opened the show promptly at 9, and with the onslaught of male and female vocal pairings these days (Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, West Indian Girl, to name only a few), these Brooklyn kids up the antie and showcase the vocals of all 4 members on several of their songs. Vocalist/guitarist Jessica Martins is a tiny little brunette spitfire with a voice that’s velvety and bittersweet, reminiscent of St. Vincent’s Annie Clark and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons. Martins was like an audio chameleon, shifting from melancholy to giddy to sad to giggly, all the while contorting her body and enrapturing the crowd watching. On tunes like ‘Modern Day Saint,’ Via Audio’s vocals and instrumental backdrop meshed like a mini indie-pop choir, with a perfect formula of catchy lyrics and addictive melodies.

Current Brooklyn residents Tigercity followed suit, sounding like trashy, sleazy disco meets 80s Lionel Richie meets modern indie pop. In other words, they’re in a class all their own. Seeing Tigercity live solidified two things for me: that this band is ridiculously fun to hear and to watch, and that vocalist Bill Gillim can seriously hit some mean falsetto notes live as well as in the studio. They played a majority of the tracks from their newest EP Pretend Not to Love, songs that are first-listen friendly with pop-soaked synthesizer melodies and hypnotic harmonizing vocals, echoing Prince during the Purple Rain era. "Are You Sensation?" and "Other Girls" played like Tigercity’s anthems to the sequined, glamorous nightlife vibe, and for a few moments, lost in the trance of their infectious sound and keyboard rhythms, I swear to you I forgot that I was in Minneapolis and not New York City.

OFFICE’s Scott Masson took the stage solo with his guitar for their first song, and dedicated the song to his grandfather, who watched quietly from the back of the bar. It was bittersweet and lyrically poignant, reminiscent of old Weezer tracks with only Rivers Cuomo and his acoustic guitar: and it was a great segway into OFFICE’s more raucous pop stuff that they’re known for. ‘Company Calls’ brought even the wallflowers from the dark corners of the bar out onto the floor, to shake their money makers and watch the amazing talents of this truly great indie-pop band. Keyboardist Jessica Gonyea barely let her feet touch the ground as she flailed her tambourine, while bassist Tom Smith hopped from the stage to the audience and back again, which prompted many raised beers as well as hoots and hollers for his effort. All I saw of drummer Erica Corniel was a tornado of hair and sticks, and the occasional open-mouthed smile or laugh. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a band have this much fun playing live. Don’t miss Chicago’s OFFICE next time they roll into town. They’re famous for their amazing live shows for a reason, and a 2 song-encore that night only solidified their reputation.

Office MySpace Page

(Tara Rogan)

Live Review: Tartufi, Lion's Pause, Northfield, MN

(Photo by Ryan Kitson)
Download: Tartufi - "Ebenezer You Are Rotten"
Download: Tartufi - "Until The Ocean Swallows Stars"

I lived in San Francisco for the summer. While I was there, I tried to see Tartufi a bunch of times. But I never got to, considering the Bay Area is the worst place ever to be under 21.

Good thing St. Olaf College is a hotspot for random independent talent, because I got to check out Tartufi for free, without getting bounced for being too young. I don't say it enough: College is marvy.

Now, Now Every Children was booked to open the show. They had to drop due to a couple of their members being in high school and not being allowed to stay out late on school nights. As disappointing as that was, their sound would have been totally complementary to that of Tartufi, but I know how it goes. No one wants to get grounded before the big Sadie Hawkins dance.

But whatever. Another blog buzz band might have been a little too hip. Tartufi was, after all, voted San Fransisco's Best Independent Act by the San Francisco Bay Guardian reader's poll. It's a big honor, considering the vibrant cultural scene in the Bay Area.

So do they live up to the hype? I think so. I can be hard to please (just a little, honestly), but there's nothing I love more than a band with a good sense of mayhem. And Lynne Angel and Brian Gorman were two of the most entropic performers ever.

You know a show is going to be chill and wacky when the band asks everyone to whip out their cell phones and call a buddy to come to the show. After a couple minutes of chipper stage banter, the silence broke and Tartufi unleashed a blitz of twisting, turning schizophrenic rock songs.

Drawing heavily from 2006's Us Upon Building Upon Us, Gorman and Angel forced ther way through epic masterpieces that would please everyone from fans of jangly, Modest Mouse-like pop rock to the precisely calculated pseudo prog rock of The Mars Volta. Lead singer/yodeler channeled a little bit of Animal Collective's acid freak camp counselor style vocals, while drummer Brian Gorman slammed away on his drums and got totally Jeff Mangum on a megaphone.

I think what really kept the duo afloat was the fact that they each do so much. Angel would riff on one guitar, record it on a guitar pedal, drop the guitar, grab a bass and do it all over again. I admire their ability to do so much without having a large band. Gorman busted out the glockenspiel and megaphone at several junctures, which generally guarantees either a good time or an absolute musical failure rivaled only by the inclusion of pan flutes in a rock song. Luckily for the audience, Gorman knows how to rock the glock, and we were treated to some whimsical little interludes in between fast-paced flurries of notes.

The two of them have an absolutely darling dynamic (they hugged after the show, and I was pretty much cuted-out), and that's something worth preserving – even if you have to play two or three instruments in one song.

There was a little bit of drag in the middle of the show owing to the drawn-out wails of Angel's vocals that start to blend together a little bit after a while. The set was also a bit short, clocking in at about an hour. But it was a really good hour, so I can't really complain.

Tartufi currently has two full-length releases, Us Upon Building Upon Us and 2005's So We Are Alive, as well as two E.Ps. I highly recommend Us Upon Building Upon Us, which showcases tighter songwriting and more excitable jams than its predecessor. All their releases can be ordered through their website.

MySpace Page

(April Wright)

The Thermals Melt My Face Off

Download: The Thermals - "St. Rosa And The Swallows" (via Indietastic)
Download: The Thermals - "No Culture Icons"
Download: The Thermals - "A Pillar Of Salt"
Download: Superhopper - "New Fresh Midwest"
Download: Reporter - "Green Death"

The illustrious, magnificent Portland-based rockers The Thermals were back in town again last night. And, once again, they melted my face off.

Superhopper opened up the show. I was pretty prepared to hate them, since they stalled their set, waiting for more people to show up, which I think is vain and silly, especially on a Monday night. But then they came out and were sweet and bubbly. And they played so well. The St Paul based pop-rockers pulled out all the stops in a half-hour non-stop blitz of rock passion. Very fun stuff.

I actually feel kind of bad for Reporter having to follow them. It was the groups 6th show ever and they were still obviously getting used to being in front of a crowd. They sounded fine, but kind of fell into the generic alt bin. There's a definite Modest Mouse influence to them on record, but that impact is greatly minimized live. They sounded good for only having 5 shows under their belt. I never would have noticed if they hadn't said anything. They were entertaining, but nothing to write home about.

And the Thermals. I've seen them three times, and this one was kind of middling. But still, middling for the Thermals is pretty awesome. They blitzed on through most of the new album, plus a smattering of crowd favorites from Fuckin' A and More Parts Per Million. And, they busted out the Built to Spill and the Wipers covers. It was a really strong setlist, I think, and captured a lot of aspects of their songwriting. Not to mention, Kathy did a killer Craig Finn impression that had everyone, especially Hutch, in gigglefits.

But the presentation of the songs was the show's weakest point. The Thermals have great rock songs, but to just push through them really downplayed their strength in melody and subtlety. It was still a phenomenal rock show and my face is going to take days to solidify, so I can't complain too hard.

MySpace Page

(April Wright)

Live Review: Voxtrot at Triple Rock Social Club

Download: Voxtrot - "Blood Red Shoes"
Download: The Little Ones - "Lovers Who Uncover"
Download: The Little Ones - "Let Them Ring The Bells"

So up what's with the fact that there were, like, 80 people at the Voxtrot show last night? Well, I won't dwell on my disappointment at the poor turnout for the show because Voxtrot was great. I really liked that they didn't stick to just the hits. They covered a good spread of material off of their self-titled debut album, as well as digging into their back catalog of E.P.s, which Ramesh Srivastava admitted they didn't have much of a chance to play from during their tour with the Arctic Monkeys.

I think the coolest thing about Voxtrot's set was that they didn't just play the songs in straight-up album form. Obviously, a good amount of the production on the album will always translate to a rougher live show. But live, a lot of their songs featured retooled intros and slightly restructured instrumentation. I always like it when bands adapt their music for their show, and Voxtrot's capacity for rearranging their material made for a wonderful concert.

As far as openers are concerned, hushed indie-folkers Sleeping States were okay, I guess. It's hard to say that much about them. They had a nice sound, but had a very mellow stage presence. The name says it all, really.

The Little Ones kind of stole the show. About a third of the crowd left with their CD, titled Sing Song. I don't think I've seen this cute of a band in a long time. The Little Ones were just so power-poppy that I was charmed instantly by them. The band's music is very much in the same vein as Voxtrot, but with One for the Team cheerleader-style "Whoah-oah"s (The resemblance is much more pointed live). But the band's stage presence is what sets them apart from the previously mentioned groups. They just looked so overjoyed to be there, and, as we all know, happiness is most definitely contagious.

The Little Ones MySpace Page
Voxtrot MySpace Page
Sleeping States MySpace Page

(April Wright)