Without a Yard

Originally uploaded by meegs.

Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis said herself after taking the stage - “The Brunettes, Nada Surf, Rilo Kiley…wow…this is some epic shit.” & she was right. I was pleasantly surprised by New Zealand’s multi-instrumentalist, mixed gender-ed & power popperiffic The Brunettes…so much so that I scored their newest LP along with the requisite (ahem) Rilo K T-shirt…
Clarinet, xylophone, trumpet perfectly (& not gimmic-ily) complimented well-crafted pop tunes that had enough umph to stand alone as solid 3 pc. outfit’s repertoires…but were sweetened up & reworked for an original twist.
Couldn’t help but get a lil’ (or a lot) misty eyed at the double whammy Nada Surf +Rilo Kiley gig last night. NS’s “Let Go” was my February/March soundtrack - the last of my days in ATX, marking a lot of reflection & walking & scary future decisions…Their harmonies are just heaven. Both RK & NS wear their hearts on their sleeves lyrically, unashamedly singing about heartbreak & loneliness & alienation…but intelligently enough to make bitingly true observations without seeming faux-ironic or jaded. In RK’s case, the narrative songs are the strongest, when Lewis takes on the burned lover character in one verse, faithful wife another….
Tho RK played a lot of new material in show, to be brutally honest, they tuckered the audience right out (not a great audience to begin with - see rant on all-ages show & insert here…& there was a disproportionate amount of Chatty McTalkalots that should just be at home mixing hipster fruitinis & listening to ‘ambient’ shit if all that interests these degenerates is the sound of their own voice…).
To be fair, RK didn’t take the stage til quarter til midnight - which means that about halfway thru a good chunk of tweenyboppers had to leave to meet Daddy at the Finch subway station or whereverthefuck. But even the devout indie mega fan was seen shuffling feet & scanning the room about two-thirds of the way through. After the super tight & high energy set of NS, it’s tough to endure too many twangy ballads (that, for the new material, starts to melt together after awhile)…especially since they reworked the ‘Portions for Foxes’ & ‘It’s a Hit’ endings so well, playing down the twang & turning up a jangly, jamming rock feel.
Anywhoo, that’s enough from the music nerdery, I’m expecting to get called into work tonight, pretty sure that I work tomorrow too (missing Waub’s epic shit party on the island…).
peace
meegs