Friday, January 7, 2011

Whisperlights/Dry River Yacht Club/Underground Cities @ Yucca Tap Room 1/5/10

I went to the Yucca Tap Room January 5 to see Underground Cities, Dry River Yacht Club and The Whisperlights.

It's no secret that The Whisperlights are my favorite local band. I've never seen the full line up because they have band members scattered across the country. They got the whole band together for a small tour that began the next day.

I've seen Underground Cities once before and was impressed. They play beautiful post-rock with a dose of energetic dance moves. I've always heard that Sigur Ros concerts are loud and mindblowing, so I suppose this is a local version of that. In spite of being an ambient instrumental band, the crowd really got into their music.

Fun fact: the bassist also plays in The Whisperlights.

Apologies to the band: I originally wasn't planning on taking pictures, so I only took a few pictures and this one turned out best.

Since I got a whopping one good photo from Underground Cities, I moved toward the stage. The Yucca Tap Room is a great venue all around- no cover, cheap drinks and amazing bands; but my only complaint is the low light. I hate using flash, but I really had no choice, especially with all these high energy performers. I switched between my 50 mm 1.8 lens and the stock lens because the 50 mm was a little too close.

I complimented Garnet, the singer of Dry River Yacht Club on her interesting earrings. She said she was going for a sci-fi look and shook her head to show that the hoops should stay in place while performing. They didn't.

I've seen Dry River Yacht Club's name pop up on quite a few line-ups and have heard good things about their music. I've been looking forward to seeing them for awhile, wanting to see what the hype was all about. They play a combination of gypsy and Cabernet music. Their sound was about what I was expecting when I first heard The Dresden Dolls. I personally am not a fan, Amanda Palmer's vocals are too melodramatic for my tastes. Garnet's voice is not- she is fun to listen to and has a great stage presence. She engaged the audience through her vibrato and dancing.

They covered "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)" by The Doors, which Garnet introduced as "A song about whiskey. If you don't like whiskey, you should get the hell out."









The Whisperlights played a lot of new songs and some songs I've never heard live. I finally got to hear Wasef sing for "Ulna." A setlist was in sight, so I sometimes felt like I was cheating because I knew which songs came next. They played four songs from their Wake Up Dead EP, everything else was new.

I still love "Lucky" and can't wait to hear a recorded version of it. They closed with "Eaten Alive."

The crowd really got into "Death." It was nice to sing and clap along with everyone else. This was one of the best Whisperlights shows I have ever seen, I highly recommend seeing them with the full line-up. West coast/TX/NM tour dates are listed here.

Their first full length album should be out sometime this year, but until then (hey, I made a funny), you can hear their new material by seeing them live. They'll be opening for El Ten Eleven on the 11th and will also play River Jones Music Festival on the 16th.













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