San Fermin with Low Roar at the Cedar, Minneapolis (14 April 2017)
|
4/20 – Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret
4/21 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile 4/22 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge 4/24 – San Francisco, CA – Independent 4/ 25 – San Francisco, CA – Independent 4/26 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy 4/27 – San Deigo, CA – The Casbah 4/28 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar 4/29 – El Paso. TX – Lowbrau Place 5/1 – Dallas, TX – Sons of Herman Hall 5/2 – Austin, TX – Antone’s 5/3 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall 5/7 – Atlanta, GA – Park Tavern 5/9 – Charlotte, NC – Visulite Theater 5/10 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club 5/11 – Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum 5/12 – Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live 5/13 – New York, NY – Brooklyn Steel 5/15 – Boston, MA 0 Brighton Music Hall 5/16 – Boston, MA 0 Brighton Music Hall
|
Starting the show, slightly later than advertised was Icelandic band Low Roar. The band is normally four people with Andrew Scheps on production, but for this U.S. tour, they’re a trio with Ryan, Logi, and Leifur.
|
Audrye Sessions at 80/35 Music Festival, Des Moines (04 July 2009)
|
Just to give a little background on Low Roar, the band is fronted by singer/songwriter Ryan Karazija, who was previously in a band called Audrye Sessions with Alicia Marie Campbell. We saw Audrye Sessions (along with 30 other bands in the same day) and described them as “really intense.”
We also wrote about them in 2008, commenting on their cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Waltz #2’: “Their version is pretty similar, I especially like singer Ryan Karazija vocals on this one.”
Anyway, when Karazija moved to Iceland and formed Low Roar, it would seem that his new band is a bit more atmospheric, often sounding like Grandaddy or latter-day Radiohead.
With three albums under their belt, Low Roar’s set concentrated on his new record Once in a Long, Long While (Nevado Music).
Since the band chose to play in near darkness (with their laptop was covered in black tape to cover any light), it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to watch the band perform… but one can argue that without the visuals, the audience had to listen to the music without distractions. As a result, especially with the Cedar Cultural Center’s clientele, the 30-minute was basically a great listening party.
In stark contrast, San Fermin’s performance was bright and full of brilliant colors. They have stepped up their game, especially since we saw them in 2014 and 2016 and very little effort was put in stage production. With the Belong tour, San Fermin had custom background and custom color-changing lights… making their show, at least visually, very appealing.
Like San Fermin’s previous records, the majority of the band’s music comes from the mastermind of Ellis Ludwig-Leone (on keys), who compose some of the grandest pop music today. Vocally, the band still teeter back and forth between deep vocal styles of Allen Tate and pop/rock vocals of Charlene Kaye.
The remainder of the band (violinist Rebekah Durham, trumpeter John Brandon, saxophonist Stephen Chen, guitarist Tyler McDiarmid, and drummer Michael Hanf) all seem to be having lots of fun performing on stage.
The majority of San Fermin’s set is taken from Belong (‘Bride’, ‘Better Company’), with some exceptions like ‘Emily’ and ‘Methuselah’.
San Fermin’s latest Belong is out now on Downtown Records.
Low Roar’s Once in a Long, Long While just came out on Nevado Music (14 April 2017).
|
Low Roar |
Low Roar |
San Fermin |
San Fermin |
San Fermin |
|
San Fermin at Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (14 April 2017) |