Kelly and I attended the CD release concert for a really great local band, Talkdemonic, at Holocene (yup, where Kacey and Ryan got married last weekend) with our friend Miranda.
Before the show we went for dinner and drinks at Lucky Lab, a great local brew pub, which aside from having great beers and great food, is also a super dog friendly place (where you get to pet a lot of other people’s dogs, yay!).
Next we went to Holocene and waited in line a bit before 9pm. We finally got in, got a couple drinks and then the first of two opening acts went onstage, Horse Feathers and they were really good. Very mellow acoustic music. The lead singer reminded Kelly and I a little of David Gray. We ended up buying their EP during the show. The band consisted of a lead singer / guitar player, a girl on keyboards singing harmony, and another fellow who alternated instruments from violin to banjo bass. During their set they announced that they have a full-length album coming out in June. Looking forward to hearing that, as the EP is very short and sounds very homemade.
The second opening act was another local band called Wet Confetti. They were good, but there were two things that both Kelly and I couldn’t get past. First, we couldn’t get get away from how similar they were to Blonde Redhead, both in the band’s composition (two males, and an asian female vocalist) and even their sound. Second, the sound of the room where the concert was held at Holocene was less than great. It made it hard to hear the female vocalist at times, and at other times it was just a mess of noise that made it hard to discern anything other than than the drums.
Finally, at about quarter past midnight, Talkdemonic took the stage. We’d seen them once before at the Doug Fir, and as before, they were fantastic. The ‘band’ consists of two people, a guy who alternates between drums and keyboards, and a girl who plays the violin. They perform with a pre-recorded track (off of a computer) of some beats, bass lines, and/or guitar riffs, and the guy of the duo (Kevin O’Connor) drums or plays keyboards to it, while Lisa Molinaro, the violinist, beautifully plays over top of it all. It is truely beautiful music, and really fun to see live. Despite the fact that it’s not your traditional rock show (there are no vocals of any kind) they really do rock, and they have a sound that is very unique. I’m listening to their new CD Beat Romantic now, and it is really really good. I highly recommend it.
That said, they too suffered from the same sound issues that Wet Confetti did unfortunately. Early in the show you could hardly hear Lisa’s violin playing, and the pre-recorded backing track was so loud that it was all you could hear most of the time. Fortunately having heard them before (both live, and via their first album) I knew enough songs to know what they sounded like and was able to get past some of the mixing board issues, but overall the sound was less than great. I’m still glad to have seen them live, and to have been there to support them for their release party for their second album. Oh, and Holocene was totally packed full. Yay for Talkdemonic! 🙂