Local Natives at Masquerade, Atlanta

Saturday before last, I saw L.A.'s Local Natives play at Masquerade, the site of the old Excelsior Mill.

Masquerade is not my favorite venue for music. The club is laid out in three levels, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, and for some reason, Local Natives were assigned to the lowest level, Hell. Some metal band was playing upstairs in Heaven, and the thump of the bass and beat of the drums reverberated through the walls literally down to the depths of Hell. And although a large crowd turned out to see Local Natives, club management kept the crowd in Hell waiting for a full hour and a half for the show to start while the metal band upstairs played on and on. And on.

In addition, the sight lines in Hell are terrible. The room is narrow and contains several large structural support columns, and the stage is only elevated a few feet above the floor. The result was that when the first band, Brooklyn's Suckers, finally took the stage, only a dozen or so people who had been standing right in front of the stage for 90 minutes or so had a good view, but most everybody behind them could only see the tops of the bandmember's heads. People in the back of the room could only see the backs of the heads of the taller persons in the audience.

I had manged to find a fairly good line of sight off to the side and a little behind of the stage, but I was also behind the PA system, so the sound wasn't very good. I could only hear the music as it ricocheted off from the back of the cavernous room, so the bass was grossly amplified and the harmonics were lost almost entirely. But I still did enjoy their set, which featured some quirky song structures, three or so members singing in what I could only assume was harmony, and even a little trumpet.

However, after the long wait for the first act, Local Natives didn't waste much time at all taking the stage, and opened with one of my favorite songs so far this year, World News. I stayed at my stage-side spot long enough to take one of my trademark grainy photos (see above) and then abandoned my post to the couple pressing in behind me to go to the back of the club for some better acoustics.

The sound was much better back there, and I wound up right by the mixing board, where I guess the sound would be balanced the best. Although I could only get occasional glimpses of the band from back there, they sounded great and I thoroughly enjoyed the set, despite the setting. They sang in their Beach Boys-style harmonies, and even covered a Talking Heads song (I heard that David Byrne checked out their New York show to hear their cover). They closed their set with Sun Hands, a rousing number that brought Suckers onto the stage with them, before the crowd finally spilled out of Hell into the balmy Georgia night.

Local Natives are a relatively new band and have just released their first album, Gorilla Manor, but they seem destined for greatness. A few nights after their Atlanta show, they appeared on Craig Ferguson's late night television show performing the song Airplane. Here's their performance in case you don't yet know what they sound like.

In summary, I saw a great set from a brilliant new band in a second-rate venue, but the former (great set, brilliant band) far out-shined the latter (second-rate venue), so, in all, it was a good evening.