Sarah Tomlinson: Blog

3.22 Dragonforce // Killswitch Engage @ The Wiltern

Sort of like the UN, but dressed in leather, and wielding the loveliest rock locks this side of the late ‘80s, Dragonforce is an international heavy metal experience like no other. You kind of just have to see it to believe it; or at least to fully appreciate their epic onslaught. Featuring members from South Africa, France, Hong Kong, England, and the Ukraine, the London-based band is a tour de force of anthemic, over-the-top speed metal. Combining crystalline keyboards and heroic vocals with mind-bogglingly rapid fire drumming, the songs are not only fast and ferocious, but also, actually kind of pretty. As they warmed up the capacity crowd for headliners Killswitch Engage, singer ZP Threat leapt about the stage like a movie pirate while conducting the audience’s fervent response, as his backing band high kicked and hair flipped up a storm. Wow.

Headliners Killswitch Engage also delivered a rousing, highly visual show, thanks to a dramatic light show and the ease with which frontman Howard Jones held down the stage and moved between demonically deep verses and soaring, almost operatic choruses while his band unleashed a taut hard rock assault behind him. Sure, emo’s not for everyone, and not all emo is for me, but as I said during the show, I actually really like AFI, and these guys are a lot cooler than AFI, so I feel pretty good about backing them.

4.2 Ratatat @ The Henry Fonda

The Brooklyn-based duo Ratatat proves you don’t need a bunch of band members, or even any lyrics, to create gorgeous, cinematic soundscapes. And the fans at their sold out Henry Fonda show proved really drunk people never dance as well as they think they do. But, aside from the elbow wielding, drink spilling, stumble king who terrorized audience members on the right side of the stage, most of the night’s uber enthusiastic fans only added to the heady, highly charged sensory experience. In fact, those who were moved to Russian folk dance, unleash Indian war cries, and shake their arms in the air like they’d wandered into a rave sometime in 1989 and just found their way out, all added their own special something to the show. Enhanced by fog, lights, and a shifting video background, the band crafted an uplifting, multidimensional experience heightened immensely by the effect that made it look like Mike Stroud’s enormous, hair-flipping, guitar-shredding shadow was going to stride off the stage and stomp the audience like a giant rock ‘n’ roll King Kong. Controlling the night’s mood with pitch perfect precision, the band shifted from subtle and moving to the kind of pure rock onslaught built on monster riffs and killer attitude. The whole experience was so transcendent that I found myself wishing for a way to recreate it, all of the time, forever. And I knew that the CD alone would never generate quite the same impact. So after the show, I invited the lads in the band to help me establish what I’m calling the Ratatat Room; you know, a space in my future house where I can open the door 24-hours-a-day and get Ratatated by the band’s live show. “You mean we’d be like interns?” joked Mike Stroud. “No, you’d have interns!” I said. Dare to dream, right?

4.3 Andrew W.K. @ Safari Sam’s

To be fair, Andrew W.K. did preface his show with an exposition about how, if you really want to party, you don’t prepare anything in advance. But the kick off to his heroically titled "High-Way Party Cruiser Tour," seemed, well, sort of baffling, and at times, even aggravating, at least as far as parties go. It makes sense that the guy whose party animal persona may be one of the most brilliant performance art conquests, ever, would crave a little reinvention. Let’s just say it’s still a work in progress.

Andrew W.K. took the stage dressed much as always, in white jeans and T-shirt (the better to get filthy in). He then treated the crowd to a good 20 minutes of keyboard noodling, accompanied by a guitar, and a guy with an oscillator to manipulate the sound of his playing. It was kind of psychedelic, but it was also kind of free jazz. And he just might be a genius. Right when I heard someone in the crowd say, “I give him 10 more minutes and then I’m out of here,” he turned it around. And how. He pulled a CD of his songs from a plastic grocery bag, brought out another guitar player, and sang and played keyboard along to recorded versions of his hits. And it was just the show everyone came to see: Sticking his microphone in his pants, he banged merrily on his keyboard, and belted out his beloved party anthems. Keyed up fans stormed the stage to sing along, mug it up, and then leap out into the audience for a little good old fashioned crowd surfing. Between songs, he delivered a pep talk about building good feelings together that was loveably new agey, but also somehow well suited to his power to the (party) people ethos.

The performance was part of uber popular weekly dance night Check Yo’ Ponytail. And the stylish kids on the scene who’d come early to catch the rowdy, glow-stick enhanced performance by Seattle’s power pop outfit The Lashes, smoke cigarettes and flirt on the club’s outside patio, and dance to ‘80s classics, seemed content that they’d gotten their party on. And yes, they did have a little help from Andrew W.K.

4.4 The Little Ones @ The Troubadour

How cute are The Little Ones? First off, you’ve got to love a band so full of good feeling that one of their songs features back up singing that’s nothing more than laughter. In fact, on the “Sounds Like” section of their you-know-what profile, they give a shout out to laughter, as well as lobster, tiki shacks, juggling, and smiles. They might also have included piñatas, carnivals, and candied apples; anything that makes life just a little better simply by being. The LA-based quintet looked like they were having the time of their lives as they delivered a set of stylish and heartfelt indie pop for a nearly sold out room. Singer/guitarist Ed Reyes beamed beatifically as his proud parents videotaped from the balcony and a bearded Keanu Reeves watched from the back of the bar. According to the band’s mantra, Uncle Lee’s Rule of Feet, a new song is only worthy of being a Little Ones track if, and only if, each of the band member’s feet can shuffle along to it. The statute has served them well, because the new song the band debuted last night was yet another percussion-fueled, dance inducing blast of sweetly sophisticated pop.

4.6 The Thermals @ EXPLX

It’s so unbelievably great when good things happen to nice people. And so it was extra special to see the enormous crowd of sweaty, bouncy, sing-a-long-happy kids rocking their hearts out to The Thermals at EXPLX on Friday night. Playing as a three piece, the band delivered a taut, high energy set full of banter (singer/guitarist Hutch Harris would be a prime contender for the role of lead funnyman in any Seinfeld-style sitcom about the real life adventures of an indie rock almost star). “How’s my hair?” he joked midway through the set, playing up his anti-diva aura. And even when a security guard sternly emerged to sit on the edge of the stage and keep the kids inline, he had a quip to keep the mood light. “Fight nice,” he said. Not that there was much need to worry. The fans were too busy dancing and grinning to offer up much in the way of a real mosh pit anyhow. The songs may have a stripped down punk fever and smart, socially conscious lyrics, but are more ebullient than angry, and everyone there (including the band) seemed happy to rock it out, rather than get too agro. See, it can pay to be nice! (Let's hope there are no skeletons in this band's closet -- tabloid payoffs, Satanic rituals aimed at spurring record sales -- boy would my face be red).

4.6 David Vandervelde @ 6th & Alameda

I know it’s irksome, how music fans in the know get so smug and gloaty about that time they caught some once-in-a-lifetime moment that will go down in the annals of rock history, FOREVER, like the time Nirvana played at a taco stand for just them and the counter person, who watched Mexican soap operas the whole time.

And yet, it must be done: Seeing David Vandervelde play on a giant half pipe in the heart of downtown LA on Friday night had the distinct aura of one of those magical musical moments. Having missed his industry-heavy set at Spaceland (this young lad is officially hot stuff, and then some), I headed downtown to see him play an impromptu set at an art space at 6th and Alameda (recent host to the stellar LA Record party featuring the Melvins and Darker My Love. What?! This was before I even started writing for LA Record, so I’m not at all biased; well, maybe just a little), where they will apparently be having free shows all summer.

Vandervelde and crew (his bassist and drummer) promptly set up and got down to it, as a good-sized crowd milled about smoking their lungs out and eating popsicles. Man can he sing, especially given what you would imagine was a less than pro stage setup, (although, to give credit where it's due, when he blew out all of the microphones partway through his set, the sound person got him up and running again quickly). He delivered songs in that cool, earnest way he has from his Secretly Canadian debut, “The Moonstation House Band,” which somehow manages to conjure both Marc Bolan and Graham Parsons. The songs are at once sexy and stylish, while also having enough raw country twang and indie edge to make them sound like totally fresh offerings. And, unbelievably, he began recording them when he was just 19 (rock trivia moment: the album features string arrangements by David “Beck’s dad” Campbell, who has also worked with Elton John and Leonard Cohen). The night's highlight was a wild and intense reworking of Cocksucker Blues made all the more apocalyptic by the explosions erupting on the screen behind him, as the amazing ‘70s sci fi classic “Death Race 2000” (starring a baby faced Sly Stallone as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo) was being screened. Seriously gorgeous music with a dark edge of danger from a young musician who couldn’t be sweeter or funnier (hearing him sing some of his original racy raps over drinks and dancing was a serious moment of its own). Gush much? Who me?