Pure Bathing Culture at 7th Street, Minneapolis (21 June 2016)

Pure Bathing Culture ended their headlining tour last Tuesday at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis. Although the band seemed to enjoy travelling and playing music, there is a hint of relief from the band as they realized it will take them another three days of driving back home to Portland, Oregon, where they can finally take a break.

Dem Yuut

Opening up the show was Dem Yuut (Jeremy Hanson, Don House, Danny O’Brien, Jef Sundquist), who drew in a pretty good crowd, especially for relatively new band on the bill. I was told later that this was the band’s only the second full set in Minneapolis (however the band had already played Chicago and Milwaukee with Pure Bathing Culture the last few nights).



Currently, the band is only uploading remixes of other band’s music, however they played some original songs on their brief 30-minute set.

Sombear

Next up was Sombear, the new music project from Bradley Hale of Now, Now. Hale sang and stayed on synthesizer, and was joined on stage by guitarist Danny.



Their late 90s inspired dance set was plagued with a troublesome synth connection. The technical difficulties forced them to restart their first song and Hale seemed deeply embarrassed about the whole thing, as he yelled, “the synthesizer hates me!”



If you didn’t recognize any of the songs, Hale explained, “I’m trying out a bunch of new songs, because I want to put out another album.” However, Somebear ended their all-new songs set with an older song, ‘Easy Thief’ from 2013’s Love You in the Dark.



We’ve seen Pure Bathing Culture a few times, but this was the first time we saw the duo as headliner. Although with a longer hour set, the band’s set was very similar to their last appearance with Lucius. Set included a good mix of Moon Tides and Pray for Rain, both available on Partisan Records.



Joining singer/keys Sarah Versprille and guitarist Daniel Hindman, was Zach on bass and Ian on drums.



With the full tour ending in Minneapolis, the band seemed naturally comfortable on stage. They were hit with technical difficulties early on ‘Dream the Dare’, but quickly recovered, and played the rest of the concert like seasoned pros.



PBC ended their set with their signature song ‘Scotty’, which we previously mentioned featured lyrics and melodies from
Benny Mardones’s single ‘Into the Night’.



The highlight of their show was the Fleetwood Mac cover ‘Dreams’, done quite faithfully for their encore song. The cover shouldn’t surprise fans, as you can hear Fleetwood Mac’s influences and style on PBC’s single ‘Pendulum’.



Pure Bathing Culture’s next appearance will be at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Block Party, playing alongside Chvrches and Odesza, etc.

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