Seratones at Turf Club, St Paul (06 May 2016)
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Tour Dates
05/13/16 Nashville, TN The Basement
05/14/16 Little Rock, AR Whitewater Tavern 05/19/16 Gulf Shores, AL Hangout Music Festival 06/03/16 Richmond, VA Brown’s Island 06/05/16 Charleston, WV Clay Center 07/15/16 Forecastle Festival 07/16/16 Sloss Music & Arts Festival 08/22/16 Hamburg, Germany Molotow 08/23/16 Berlin, Germany Kantine Am Berghain 08/24/16 Cologne, Germany Blue Shell 08/25/16 Cabaret Vert Festival 08/27/16 Reading, UK “Reading Festival” 08/28/16 Leeds, UK “Leeds Festival” 09/01/16 London, UK The Lexington 09/03/16 End Of The Road Festival
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Combine various ingredients of all kinds, add additional spices and seasonings, then let simmer. Shreveport, LA band Seratones was recently in town on the very day their debut album, Get Gone (on Fat Possum Records) was released, and the results were very similar.
The quartet (AJ Haynes –vocals/guitar, Connor Davis-guitar, Adam Davis-bass, and Jesse Gabriel-drums) has been gradually gaining buzz- Winning a Louisiana Music Golden Microphone prize in 2013, getting notice from Paste and NME and showcasing at this year’s SXSW Festival in Austin, TX.
Though sometimes compared to Alabama Shakes, the band is purposely more rough around the edges, and adds more of a garage punk/blues trait to their music, for the comparisons to run too deep.
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Eleganza!
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The night started with two opening bands- The Carnegies featuring the Mars brothers (Royce on drums, and Roman on bass) and Taylor Tolle on the guitar who played retro-fueled blues/psych rock and Eleganza!, a three-guitar super group of sorts with Brian Vanderwerf and Jeff Johnson of Chooglin’ , ex-Ol’ Yeller’s Greg McAloon, and Romantica’s Tony Zaccardi (who also fronts a Guns n’ Roses tribute band).
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Seratones
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Playing almost exactly an hour, Seratones fired up with the opening track from Get Gone, ‘Choking On Your Spit’, a crunchy number that evokes driving a classic Dodge Challenger on a back road, letting the accelerator lead you. Gears changed with the more soulful ‘Don’t Need It’ , then went more straight-ahead rock ‘n roll with early single, ‘Necromancer’.
‘Get Gone’ was a foot-stomping burner with Haynes’ voice going from gravel lows to searing highs and ‘Kingdom Come’ found Davis’ guitar emoting rock riffage over Gabriel’s scat-jazz drums with Haynes’ siren voice ending the song with “I’ll leave you bound and reeling, but I’ll be your best, believe me”.
A revved up soul version of Neil Young’s ‘Walk On’ was brilliantly melded with the gospelized ‘People Get Ready’ and a stark and solo Haynes version of Prince’s The Beautiful Ones’ proved an apt tribute.
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Setlist
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The set then went into overdrive as Haynes jumped into the audience for their own ‘Take it Easy’ and the Mc5’s “Kick out the Jams’, amidst heads bobbing, spastic dancing, and people playing air guitar, for an electric ending to their main set.
After instructing the crowd to say “hey man” back to the band after every verse, the band ripped into a garage, chugging ‘Suffragette City’, effectively paying homage to the other rock legend lost this year to end the evening.
Like the gumbo, Seratones took a little time to fully flourish and marinate, but once it did, it was a very satisfying taste of this Shreveport band that has a bright future ahead. Getting Gone should always be so right.
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Seratones at Turf Club, St Paul (06 May 2016) |