|  

Monday, February 22, 2010

Music / Local Music / Music Review

Concert review: Blind Man's Colour, Sons of Hippies and MillionYoung at New World Brewery (with pics)

Posted by Matthew Spencer on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 12:03 AM

The last year has been good to St. Petersburg's Blind Man's Colour [pictured] -- they were featured on Stereogum, blogged about by Kanye West and became labelmates with Grizzly Bear on Kanine Records. Their psychedelic 2009 debut, Season Dreaming, drew instant comparisons to Animal Collective in the blogosphere.

click to enlarge bmc1
But Friday night at New World Brewery as they celebrated the release of their new six-song EP, Wooden Blankets, the lush choir of electronic, oceanic ambiance from the record was replaced with simplicity. An eager crowd of followers, packed closely for warmth, gathered under the wooden awning and cheered on Kyle Wyss and Orhan Chettri, who were performing as a duo without a drummer or bassist, on keys and guitar, respectively. Wyss also brought programmed hip-hop and tribal beats to the table to accompany the duo's mellow and seldom-processed vocals.

Blind Man's Colour left me wanting more. The songs were good but never fleshed-out enough to captivate and at this early point in their musical careers, they just didn't have the kind of magnetic stage presence that kept me interested in what they were playing. Despite those shortcomings, the Kanye-approved "Jimmy Dove" was a melodic highlight of the six-song set. [More pics + review after the jump.]

Perhaps my expectations were underwhelmed because I was still reeling from my Brandi Carlile concert high, or because their set followed the groovy, dimly-lit lounge tone set by solo opener MillionYoung. It took a few minutes for musician Mike Diaz's unabashedly pop song craft to sink in, but I soon found my resistance was futile. My feet awoke from a cold snap and kept a-tappin' through a 25-minute set of infectious beats and sweeping synths that left me longing for the sands of Miami Beach.

click to enlarge DSC_0236
Bookending the show was Sarasota band Sons of Hippies with a set full of percussive, psychedelic rock from their 2009 album, Warriors of the Light. Frontwoman Katherine Kelly tripled her duties with vocals, guitar and keys, occasionally hunched over and wielding her instrument in a sort of possessed square dance. It was precisely that kind of reckless abandonment that egged the crowd on for 45 minutes. Drummer/vocalist Jonas Canales and bassist Mike Mok fed off Kelly's confidence and provided just enough gusto to support her abstract words.

The energy reached a fever pitch when the trio debuted two new songs from their next album, due out in August, kicking up the rhythm and incorporating Mok on background vocals, and generally amping up the intensity to great dynamic effect. Sons of Hippies provided a rousing end to an evening of diverse music that, overall, would make any local music fan proud.

[gallery=101]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS

Add a comment

Latest in Daily Loaf

Search Events

all events
concerts
restaurants
movie times

Recent Comments

Top Commenters

Most Popular
Most Shared
Most Commented

© 2012 SouthComm, Inc.