Yet another show at good ol’ Urban Lounge. I think that Isaac and I are
now starting to become those two creepy dudes that are always at the same bar every other night that stand in the background and stare at everybody. To make matters worse were always running around these shows filming and taking pictures like a pair of voyeuristic perv-towns.
Anyway, the nights schedule went as usual and we missed the opening band which I can not remember the name of (I searched around the net for like an hour trying to figure it out). I grabbed one of their stickers, but its lost in a pocket somewhere. So my most humble apologies to the anonymous band that I forgot, sorry! (Update: They are called L’anarchiste, here’s a link to thier tunes http://lanarchiste.bandcamp.com/ , download it’s good and it’s free! Now I am bummed I missed them.)
The second opener was a band I had never heard of called Hospitality. This female fronted band was absolutely freaking amazing. They are like the perfect concoction of Land of Talk meets The Strokes, but with a way more amazing rhythm section. The bass player Brian Bentancourt and new drummer David Christian were honestly so good. I know I’m always hooting and hollering about bass players and drummers, but seriously these two
dudes were freaking awesome. Super creative and powerful. It’s because of this fact that Hospitality stole the show and won over two new fans. I have since been obsessed with their self titled full length, which you can check out here http://www.mergerecords.com/store/store_detail.php?catalog_id=820
Also, I have never mentioned this before, but my dear friend Isaac has regrettably been suffering from a rare form of self-induced dementia and sometimes loses his mind for several minutes. Tonight was one of those nights and he had forgotten his magical live clip capturing device (the camera would spontaneously appear just in time for Here We Magic’s set). Below is a shitty live clip I took on my cellphone for their song “Sleepover”, If you would like to see a live clip which has far better audio and visual quality, then watch Paste Magazine’s video for “All Day Today” . Also, their music video for “Friends of Friends” has famous people in it.
When Here We Go Magic took the stage each band member had this expression on their face, like they were not very happy to be playing that night. They then immediately asked for the lights to be turned down and began. I was actually super stoked for this show, but soon realized that I was not about to get the performance that I was expecting.
The band had this glum jam vibe to them all night. Now I get that a lot
of their music is mellow, which I like and they did get into one really cool groove after another and the complex vocal harmonies were spot on the entire show. But, there was hardly any energy during their set. The band rarely stopped to acknowledge the crowd or interact, and with lights down low the songs seemed to blend together while the band kept churning along with their mellow vibe. To top it all off I kept waiting for them to play my favorite song of their’s “Casual” and they never did.
So while the performance wasn’t bad, I thought it could have been a lot better and since I really enjoy all of Here We Go Magic’s albums. I was hoping for something amazing, but what I saw was just another concert.
However, the night wasn’t a total bust because of Hospitality. The really did steal the show and their new drummer David Christian is bad ass. I made sure to hunt the bass player and the drummer down during the performance of Here We Go Magic to tell them how much of crush I had on them. They seemed to appreciate my sincere stalkerish compliment. Do what’s good for you and check Hospitality out. As far as Here We Go Magic’s live show is concerned, you might want to get all drugged down with some Valium and booze before attending.