Jun 12
Propelled by another bout of glowing rhetoric in the alternative press, I sauntered down to Central Square last night to take in the sounds of Boston’s ‘The Good North’. Little did I know that a relatively unknown opening act would totally overshadow them.
The evening opened with a whirlwind set by another one of the city’s avant-garde up-and-comers, The Bon Savants. Having seen them at the same venue a few months earlier, I could sense an overall tightening up of their moody, introspective set. Their seminal single: ‘Post-Rock Defends the Nation’ sounded far more crisp and gig-tested than on the previous occasion. Its quiet-loud chorus refrain though, was as emotive and haunting as ever. They concluded their set with a highly textured instrumental track that I hadn’t heard before and left the stage on a fairly sombre note.
At this point, the club was still only about half full. A motley gathering of the city’s mods and hipsters was filing in and out of the place. One got the general feeling that the night’s spectacle was still a while away. At approximately 10:30 pm, many of us were quickly disabused of that notion.
From the first synthesizer beep to the last vocal inflection, New York City’s ‘The Bravery’ were an exercise in effortlessly stylish performance. Never sounding contrived or overwrought, their fusion of electronic dance-pop and uptempo art-punk was a delightfully tasty combination. The dynamic interplay of each band member onstage was also pretty remarkable. The brooding ‘electronics guy’ huddled over his sequencer and laptop was a perfect foil to the animated theatrics of well really, the whole rest of the band. But really, words don’t do justice to these guys’ stage presence. Go see them if you get the chance. As a last point, it was refreshing to hear the odd outbreak of quickfire guitar solos. Following in the footsteps of Dinosaur Jr., The Bravery aptly demostrate that a little bit of tastefully placed ‘shredding’ doesn’t detract from the indie ethic.
They were, however, a very tough act to follow. While both ‘The Information’ and ‘The Good North’ were seething with creative energy, they simply could not match the aura and dynamics of their out-of-town guests. Not to be unfair though, I would really need to go see those two bands independently to make a better assessment. But really, there’s no doubt in my mind as to who stole the show last night
