Before I start this review I want to apologize to the fellow who opened before Avi Buffalo because I really enjoyed his performance but did not hear his name. I even have some video of his performance during which he played guitar, sang, and played drums at the same time! Excellent showing, I just missed his name and it wasn't on the bill so once I do find out for sure who he is I'll post a correction and try to review something of his.
The mild-mannered, pompaoured, mystery musician played a couple quiet yet satisfying, acoustic/electric songs that I'll talk about in a later entry when I get myself a little better acquainted with his work. Then Avi Buffalo came on.
I won't pretend to be very familiar Avi Buffalo before I saw them. All I knew was that they were signed to Sub-Pop which is a good sign given the number of bands I like on the label; but that was all I knew. Apparently it was their inaugural Texas show, them being from California. The first song they played made me a little nervous because the vocals were very high and eccentric but I got used to that pretty fast. I don't know why I was ever worried because I love eccentric stuff. The guitar playing was done through some sort of unique effects unit that I wanted to ask the frontman about but decided not to because I didn't want to come off as some sort of annoying groupie-freak and they were in a rush to get off the stage for Rogue Wave. The combination of keys and tastefully affected guitar playing made for an extremely enjoyable set that never bored me for a second. The songs in themselves were immersive and catchy but I was particularly drawn to the lead guitarist/vocalist. Man that guy can play guitar. I'm still getting acquainted with Avi Buffalo but here are a few videos of them at Warehouse.
As Rogue Wave set up I hovered at the edge of the stage observing their effects pedals and other gear and noticed a few Digitech Whammys. I hope I don't bore anyone talking about this but the Whammy is one of my favorite effects units because of the unique sounds it makes. It has a depressible pedal like a wah effect but what it does is radically boost or lower the pitch of the tone depending on where the pedal is moved. It can be used subtly for a whammy bar type pitch shifting or octave type effects. It gets used a lot by Jack White and for those of you not familiar with his work I'm sure you've all heard the song "Icky Thump" which has an intense guitar solo that is played through the Whammy boosting the tone to very high, screaming pitches, that are impossible to achieve otherwise. I had a veritable gear-gasm.
Anyway, I digress. While I looked at the stage I spied a setlist tape to the ground beneath the keyboard rig at the end of the stage and all the songs on the list made me smile (eyes, lake Michigan, Harmonium etc.) They opened with an energetic number I hadn't heard before called "Stars and Stripes"
I knew they'd come out with a new album in early March (Permalight) but didn't get the chance to look it over before the show. Sometimes it's better that way because I don't get hung up on trying to guess all the titles and can just stand back and enjoy the music for what it is.
The frontman, Zach Schwartz, played rhythm guitar and sang (occasionally played accompanying keyboards) while Dominic East played lead for most songs and sang. Pat Spurgeon (brave fighter of some serious health problems) played drums while other band members joined him for an entertaining group drum solo at one point:
Newer members Cameron Jasper and Steve Taylor, playing bass and keys respectively, both joined Rogue Wave in 2009. The most electrifying performance besides Zach Schwartz came from Dominic East on lead guitar who had an infectious grin on his face the entire show, a propensity for dancing around: he just simply oozed energy. During the song "We will make a song destroy" East started a group clap that really added to the song and made it that much better along with Schwartz's primal, chugging, guitar playing at the chorus:
Like usual, I'm not going to give you the whole set list but the some of the most memorable songs were: Stars and Stripes, Bird on a wire, We will write a song destroy, Lake Michigan, eyes, Harmonium, and Permalight. Harmonium has always been one of my favorite songs with its explosive high-hat-rattling intro which I captured on my iPhone:
They closed with an awesome rendition of the title track from "Permalight" during which the two opening bands jumped up on stage with Rogue Wave to form an impromptu dance party.
I was totally impressed by all the bands and hope I can see them again in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment