Live Reviews
Review of TWMFEST Day 1
- by E.W. Farr
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Add to del.ico.us.(2008-05-20)
TWMFEST Day 1
Well friends, Two Way Monologues (TWM) has been going strong for one year, and to celebrate Dan put together three days of jam-packed shows for the Rancho Relaxo crowd. I knew I would be out of town for Day Two and Three, so I made sure to be there for the first show of the series on Thursday night.
http://www.myspace.com/theeatons
My buddy and I arrived while The Eatons were already in the middle of their set. My first and lasting impression of them was weak and out-of-tune harmonies. The musicianship seemed average at best, so I really didn’t pay too much attention to the rest of their set. Not too many people at the Rancho seemed to be interested either.
The tracks from their MySpace page don’t sound too bad but as you can tell, it’s pretty poppy harmony-driven music. So imagine that the rhythm section is a little looser than the recorded version and that the harmonies are off-key a lot. That’s what they sound like live. Some bands find it hard to transition to a live setting and this can be for a number of reasons, from bad sound from the monitors to lack of practice. This seemed to be the case here. They also tend to repeat the chorus “hook” far too often which gets annoying to my ears.
http://www.myspace.com/numbersfigures
Next up was Numbers & Figures and the crowd seemed to build towards the stage when they came on. A few songs into their set I began to get interested and left the bar to take it in from a closer spot stage left. They were putting on a good show and the crowd was getting into it. The keyboard player might as well not have been on stage though. I could barely hear him, if it all, most of the time. Normally I would say something but I didn’t. Sound at the Rancho is hit or miss depending on where you’re standing so I thought maybe it was just my place on the floor. Regardless, they put on a solid set and even managed a cover of The Microphones The Glow Pt II that was quite good. I was informed that this was their third last show, so I’m sure the members of the band will be moving on to bigger and better things.
http://www.myspace.com/fiveblankpages
I’ve seen Five Blank Pages at least a dozen times, so I’m very familiar with their music. They were good as a four-piece and great as a five-piece so I was really interested to see how their tight, power pop tunes would translate in their current two-piece formation. I was disappointed to hear that no new songs would be in the set. They played a nice, short, acoustic guitar (Noyan) and keyboard (Pinar) set. It was enjoyable, but I kept waiting for Chelen’s big drum buildups and Rajiv’s great bass lines to kick in (and watching front and center, I could see from Chelen and Rajiv’s air drum and bass slapping that they were wanting to hear it too). It was also weird that they followed a pretty energetic set by Numbers & Figures. They would have been better suited to go on earlier in the night. But all in all it was good and I’m waiting to hear what they come up with next.
http://www.myspace.com/thekeywitness
The last band of the night went on late, but god dammit they were worth it! Key Witness is a wicked band and they really blew me away. From the looks of the lineup -- guitar, bass, drums, acoustic guitar, violin and keyboard -- I was expecting a Wilco type alt-country act. But when I saw the bass player slapping his bass funk style and the drummer start pumping on his kick drum with a ton of energy I knew things were going to be different then they appeared. They definitely have the alt-country thing going, but it’s really anthemic and mixed with a bunch of other great stuff like funky bass and tight drumming, violin for a bit of East Coast flair and a singer with one hell of a cool voice. All of it mixes together for something really unique. And they’re about as heavy as a band with violin and acoustic guitar can get. This is something that their recorded tracks only hint at, but they broke more strings than I’ve ever seen and it was awesome. Check them out ASAP, they made the night for me!
-E.W. Farr