A couple Thursdays ago I was blessed with the opportunity to see Brooklyn's Vivian Girls live in concert for my second time. Their brand of noisy, lo-fi garage-punk was something that I didn't quite understand, let alone enjoy, until after seeing them at the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival. As awesome as their set was at the fest, it was even better seeing them in a smaller, more intimate setting (even if crowd attendance was lower than I expected).
The night started with a solid set from Detroit's very own and very new Fawn. Made up of Christian Doble (Copper Thieves, ex-Child Bite, ex-Kiddo), Alicia Gbur (ex-The Nice Device) and Matt Rickle (Javelins, Thunderbirds Are Now!), Fawn is a Detroit supergroup of sorts still in the process of writing songs and feeling each other out. This being their third show, those details were pretty evident. However, they played a good set (unfortunately with one downer that I could have done without), bringing to mind a cleaner Pixies. Doble's melodies were straightforward but strong, and Rickle's drumming was the highlight of the set, trading your typical pop and rock 'n' roll beats for more complex and interesting ones and throwing in subtle intricacies here and there.
Male Bonding followed, and while in all honesty I had little interest in watching them and was distracted by friends in attendance, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by what I heard. I didn't pay enough attention to further explain, really, but I'll take a stab at it. It seemed like they were playing a chaotic yet anthemic and melodic version of punk rock. I guess I heard a little Wipers and Nirvana in their sound, but their song structures were a bit more muddled than that. Also, I think I heard a few emo chords in there, which is totally cool by me.
Vivian Girls headlined with an anxious and feel good set packed with most of the hits from both of their records. They started things off just right (and quite surprisingly, to me) by opening with "I Have No Fun," from 2009's excellent (and also my 11th favorite album from that year) Everything Goes Wrong. From then on they mixed and matched, showcasing their bizarre merging of wonderfully flawed, Beach Boys-style harmonies with jangly and droning guitar chords on jams like "Wild Eyes" and "When I'm Gone" (probably their best song, and at the very least my 10th favorite song of 2009). Somewhere in there they found the time to play a fantastic rendition of Everything Goes Wrong closer "Before I Start to Cry." It was hard for me to imagine their set being any better, and then they came out for one of the best and shortest encores I've witnessed, basically sprinting through two of my three favorite songs from their 2008 self-titled effort: "All the Time" and the blazing fast "No."
That particular Thursday evening turned out to be a great night filled with pop-infused punk rock (or the other way around in Fawn's case) and good buds. The night was made even better when I ran into Viv Girls at a gas station in Ypsilanti on their way to Chicago and they were incredibly nice and approachable. What a group of talented, bad ass cuties!
1 comment:
I saw them at Subterranean here in Chicago. Good show! Did they do the a cappella one for you guys?
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