You remember that old parable about a group of blind men and an elephant? Well, sonically that’s what went down at Big Night Live last week, with three distinctively different sounding bands combining for an overall strong bill. Snail Mail is riding high with the release of Richochet, and despite the opening of the lead track “Tractor Beam” veering heavily into another band’s song, the new material sounded pretty good. It’s a bit lusher than past efforts, with layered strings/keyboards providing a soft bed for the melodies to land on.
The minor key-tinged “Butterfly” was the standout of the set for me, but if you have a different fave you were in luck as the band played the entire record (and Lindsey got a chance to showcase off a handful of guitars from her collection in the process). Of course she didn’t forget fan faves like “Thinning,” “Heat Wave” or encore closer “Pristine.” Side note – based on videos and photos I’ve seen of other shows, Boston traded a white picket fence for panes of plexiglass shielding the drum kit from the rest of the musicians, much in the same manner I’ve seen Mission of Burma and mclusky have employed to protect the hearing of Roger Miller and Andy Falkous; not sure if Jordan had a short case of tinnitus to deal with or maybe it was a measure to balance the sound on the stage.
In the middle of the set was Boston’s Swirlies, who reactived for sporadic shows a couple of years ago. It was pretty easy to pick out the people who came to see which band, and definitely the median age was skewed by fans of this shoegazy noise band who likely saw them play in the early ’90s (raises hand). Right off the bat there was some technical issue with guitarist Damon Tutunjian’s pedal rig, which certainly didn’t help the sound mix, which plagued all three bands over the evening. Weak vocals, overly aggressive mid-range, boomy bass – not sure if it was the room or the person at the mix desk but muddy sound was the order of the evening.
Sharp Pins got things moving with their high-energy mix of snappy pop tunes baptized in the Mersey. Tonight they had an additional guitar to beef up their sound, though the previous shows I’ve seen them play didn’t really seem that Kai Slater’s tone was weak. They banged out a tidy ten songs in their slot, and in true DIY fashion the set list was handwritten on a paper plate. Overall their headlining set back in January was better from a variety of reasons but a Pins set is always welcome.
