The Royal Concept w/ Parade of Lights at Nether Bar, Minneapolis (22 Nov 2015)
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Minneapolis’ The Nether Bar, one of the smallest venues in the metro to host nationally touring bands, was the location on this night, where most of the bands happened to play in near-to-complete darkness.
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Calvin Heights
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Opening the evening was St. Paul’s own Calvin Heights, a four-piece indie rock quartet who clearly didn’t get the memo and played in relatively normal lighting (though it all looks a little dank in this underbelly of bigger club Mill City Nights).
The foursome Brett Carey (Guitar/Vocals/Keys) ; Caleb Anderson (Bass/Guitar/Vocals) ; Ben McKeown (Drums) ; and Luke Arend (Keys) released their 2nd EP Tall Tales of the Confident Man this August and songs like ‘Dennis’ and ‘Lovely Melodies’ have a dreamy, sparse, and wandering quality similar in some ways to Bon Iver (they even have a song called ‘Eau Claire’ too) that proves being lost in the woods is not necessarily a bad thing.
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Tribe Society
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Washington Heights, NY band Tribe Society was next, getting the “no stagelights” message down pat by playing in complete darkness, save a pair of lighted vertical poles at the back of their stage that resembled lightsabers (the force awakens early!) and playing a sound layered with more toppings than a slice of NYC pizza.
Vocalist Gavin McDevitt seemed more hip-hop leaning, bass/guitar player Rory Given more hard and heavy, and flutist Seth Hachen adding some classic rock to the mix- flute + rock band makes people think Jethro Tull, but consider them Tull’s malcontent East Coast club-kid nephew instead. Springboarding from recent release, Stoner and Kings (Island Records), expect a continuous tracked mixtape next, with both originals and cover versions.
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Parade of Lights
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LA/Vegas electro-rock quartet Parade of Lights followed with an all-too-brief 25min set of catchy radio-friendly songs, mostly culled from initial full-length Feeling Electric (Astralwerks) which came out in June. The band enjoyed massive licensing success for single ‘Golden’ which was featured everywhere from the Olympics to the Golden Globes, but is still trying to make that bigger break where the band becomes as recognizable as their popular song.
Singer Ryan Daly’s hair has even turned golden since we last saw them, with keys/synth player Michelle Ashley bringing plenty of enthusiasm while bass player Randy Schulte and drummer Anthony Improgo ably held up the back end. For whatever reason, this band that plays bright, sunny electro, was lit as dimly as London’s Underground during the blitz, making for a strange dichotomy that seemed counter to their music, though the songs themselves, remain irresistible.
Closing band The Royal Concept had a built-in advantage in playing here- the Stockholm, Sweden four-piece has already culled a sizeable local following, no doubt helped by the fact that Minneapolis boasts a large number of people of Swedish and Scandinavian descent. Lighting was more pronounced with some strobing, though it still allowed the band to hide in dark spots at times.
Their hour-long set took mostly from 2014’s Goldrushed (avail only as an import here) as well as a couple songs from the new Smile EP (Lava Music/ Republic Records). “We haven’t played a smaller stage in over three years” singer David Larson mentioned as Filip Bekic- gtr, Frans Povel-drums and a touring bassist all smiled, keeping their heads down from hitting the overhead pipes.
‘Shut the World’ was written as the band was trapped during Hurricane Sandy in Pittsburgh was revealed to be one of Larson’s favorites to play and the EP title track, ‘Smile’ was a cheeky response to numerous online fan comments that the band never smiles in their press photos.
‘World on Fire’ featured heavy vocoder vocals while ‘Gimme Twice’ sounded right out of Phoenix’s catalog. ‘On Our Way’ and the single song requested encore ‘Cabin Down Below’ brought back the vocoder and Larson’s surprise that the crowd knew and even requested a song never even officially released in this country.
And like a cabin down below, the Nether Bar proved to be a dark and somewhat cramped venue, but the music of four very different but effervescent bands, helped bring a light to where there was none.
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The Royal Concept at Nether Bar, Minneapolis (22 Nov 2015) |