Music Reviews

Last Saturday, as reported, I saw Two Door Cinema Club and Phoenix at The Tabernacle, and although not previously reported, I saw Snowblink and Owen Pallett at The Earl last Tuesday night. Brief reviews follow.

Ireland's Two Door Cinema Club opened for Phoenix last weekend at The Tabernacle in their first American gig. They were scheduled to come to the U.S. a week earlier to start their tour with Phoenix and would have debuted in Chicago, but their flight plans were complicated by a volcano in Iceland (you may have heard about it) and they didn't get to the U.S. until the Phoenix tour had reached Atlanta. This makes the second time I've seen a band premier in the States. Way back in February 1979 (before any of the members of Two Door Cinema Club were even born), I saw a band called Dire Straits (you may have heard of them) make their American debut at the Paradise Theater in Boston. I still have a button to commemorate the event, my little piece of rock 'n' roll memorabilia. However, although they're a fine young band, I doubt Two Door Cinema Club will ever achieved the commercial success that Dire Straits enjoyed. That's not meant as any sort of criticism, just a recognition of the changed economic times and the randomness of the star-making machinery. They seem like sincere young gentlemen and put on a fine show, and I wish them all the luck.

Paris' Phoenix have achieved greater success, including having one of their songs featured in a Cadillac commercial, the pinnacle of success for some bands in these difficult times. Phoenix predictably opened their set with a perfectly acceptable version of their single Lisztomania and closed with their other hit 1901 (the song from the Cadillac commercial). The audience and your reviewer enjoyed the songs in between, although the band never really did anything unpredictable to surprise the crowd, other than have vocalist Thomas Mars leave the stage and wade through the crowded audience on the floor during the encore performance. I was up in the balcony, seated between two young women and a couple of high-school age. During one of Phoenix's songs, the guy leaned over and asked me if I was a big fan of the band, obviously surprised to see some one of my age at the show. I told him that I was, and that simple, binary, yes-or-no answer seemed to satisfy his curiosity.

The Tabernacle is a 2600-person venue, a good place for bands too big to play nightclubs but not yet ready to fill stadiums. But as I've said here before, I prefer to see innovative, up-and-coming acts at smaller venues than watch established stars trot out familiar hits on what is to them just another stop on an endless tour (The Phoenix/Two Door Cinema Club show at The Tabernacle fits comfortably between those two endpoints). I don't know the specific capacity of East Atlanta's The Earl, but it's most certainly on an order of magnitude less than that of The Tabernacle. It's actually just an unpretentious little neighborhood bar with a performance space in the back, but has managed to book some excellent bands over the years. Last Tuesday, the band Snowblink opened there for Owen Pallett. I had never heard of Snowblink before, but they apparently consist of two guitarists and a violin. Vocals are mostly provided by Daniela Gesundheit, whose guitar sports a pair of antlers for some reason. They provided pleasant, if unmemorable, songs to an audience eagerly anticipating the set by Mr. Pallett.

Toronto's Owen Pallett used to record and tour under the name Final Fantasy, but had to drop the name due to a copyright issue with the manufacturer of the computer game. His fans seem to have taken the change in stride. When I got to The Earl, there were few people there, but I got talking to two young men who had rode all the way from Augusta, Georgia just to see the show - a three-hour drive (each way). At least one was an enthusiastic fan (the other was apparently just dragged along for the company), and I got into a spirited discussion with the fan on his enthusiasm for Pallett's music. It turns out both he and his friend were in Military Intelligence (there's a big Army base near Augusta), and discovered Pallett's music while stationed in Afghanistan.

This surprised me, as Pallett's music is complex and cerebral, not the kind of thing one would expect would attract the attention of young intelligence officers stationed in Afghanistan. Pallett plays solo violin and creates dense, orchestral textures by using a sequencer to loop violin and keyboard passages over one another, and then singing and playing over the results. Except for the vocals, Noveller employs somewhat the same approach using electric guitar, but while Sarah Lipstate's interests lean toward nearly ambient soundscapes, Pallett plays in more traditional song structures, so that each song holds up even if one were unaware of the techniques he employs to create his compositions.

Pallett took the stage alone and quickly filled the room with his looping sounds. He was occasionally joined on stage by a second musician, Thomas Gill, who filled in with a little guitar and drums, and occasionally backed Pallett up on vocals. They played several songs from Heartland, Pallett's latest recording, as well as from the Final Fantasy back catalog, and occasionally surprised the audience with covers, such as a very intimate version of Arcade Fire's No Cars Go. To give you some idea of what all of this might sound like, here's a song (The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead) from Pallett's recent set at New York's Webster Hall, just a couple of days before his Atlanta show (that's Pallett and Gill at Webster Hall in the photo above). If you follow along carefully, you can hear how the song builds up from one initial simple violin figure into a full-bodied structure.

So that was my past week in music. Owen Pallett clearly provided the most memorable of the performances seen, although each musician provided a satisfying experience. Tonight, I'm off to see Southern California's Local Natives play in Hell, the ground-floor performance space at three-tiered The Masquerade, the former Excelsior Mill. I'll be sure to report on this show at a later date.

Oh, and Happy May Day, comrades!