I’m writing this while the USA v. Australia game is at the half. Any breaks in the post where it seems to not make sense can be credited to that.
There used to be a venue in town called the Roxy. Not as big as the House of Blues and not as small as the Middle East; the perfect middle ground. A few years back, the Roxy closed. Recently, they reopened it with a new name: Royale. Boy am I glad they did. Last nights Morning Benders and Broken Bells show was the first concert I saw there and, honestly, I would see every show there for the rest of my life if I could. Picture a wide open room with the greatest sound system of all time and you’ve got Royale. It got even better when the Morning Benders hit the stage.
To the uninitiated, the Benders could have been written off, based on looks alone, like a Vampire Weekend wannabe. If I were deaf-and hadn’t heard their music prior to the show-I might have done just that. I have never understood “chill wave.” I mainly just don’t understand why we needed to add a new genre into a world where everyone seems to have their own names for genres that only exist in theory. I’ve heard the Benders referred to as chill wave, which is why I bring this up. If they are in fact chill wave, they are the daggum Beach Boys of chill wave. All their instruments were live (i.e. not sequenced, save for a few triggered percussion sounds) and their harmonies were on point. Clearly a well rehearsed band, their sound was ridiculously tight. Not so tight that it sounded just like the record, but tight enough where they could go off on their own tangents and the others would follow suit. I was a huge fan of the band taking requests. You just don’t see enough of that these days. My only complaint in regards to their set was the absence of their Jungle Book cover. I’m real into that song.
I was curious as to how Broken Bells would go about things. I mean, I saw them live on Letterman and they were good enough but I couldn’t figure out how they would pull off a live set. Leaving out James Mercer and Danger Mouse, their backing band looked like they were pulled straight out of TV shows and movies. Their bass and guitar player looked exactly like Bill and Ted. The guitarist/keyboard player up front was Ted Mosby from “How I Met Your Mother.” They had a dude who played percussion and filled in on drums when Danger Mouse was doing things at the front of the stage who could’ve served as a body double for Dimitri Martin. Lastly, their keyboard player in the back looked like one of the dudes from that Johnny Knoxville movie “The Ringer.” But doppelgangers aside, their set was great.
They played all of their debut album, in no particular order. Since they only have 40 minutes of original material, they needed to add in a couple covers. First up was the Tommy James and the Shondells cover “Crimson and Clover” right in the middle of their set. In their three-song encore, they came back with “You Really Got A Hold On Me” and honestly, who hasn’t sang that song? Having no idea what to expect, my expectations were shattered ten-fold. Having Danger Mouse play guitar and keys on songs was awesome, mainly because I never pictured him being a drummer. I mean, I guess it makes sense with him being a DJ and all, but I pictured him doing more electronics-based stuff. All in all, it was a solid show. It was a great pairing of the super chill and the aggressive chill. I’m excited to see if Broken Bells will be able to break the mold of one-off collabs and really do something revolutionary.
(Check out this post and others over at The Record Crate)
