Love is All. Fantastic. They ride bikes!! They hail from Gothenberg, Sweden (the "West Side!", as Josephine said with a cute, Swedish ghetto rapper accent). Love is All made their San Francisco debut tonight at Popscene in front of a surprisingly sparse crowd. I got there early, thinking that it'll be jam packed. And why not? These guys are fantastic live and definitely worth all the buzz. Granted, their music isn't super melodic like the headliner, Voxtrot, but noise is great. Josephine Olausson's vocals reminds me of Manda Rin from the now defunct Bis. And that's a cause of great concern for a lot, but I love Bis and I love Love is All.
They played a lot of songs (which isn't surprising because most of their songs are pretty short). Nobody around me was dancing except for that little corner stage right. Josephine focused her attention to them a lot, while I was relegated to the middle front. They opened up with "Talk Talk Talk Talk" complete with cowbell in hand. Fredrik's sax was very good for this one, albeit piercing at times because of the Popscene sound system. I loved it when they played "Busy Doing Nothing" from their great album Nine Times the Same Song. I wanted to hop around and jump, but I was among still people, so I just danced in place. Same thing happened during "Spinning and Scratching." But they were lively on stage and fun to watch. They ended with "Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up" with its long guitar beats. Great! Me and some other guy shouted for "Felt Tip," but Josephine said that they don't play that well live. They even did an encore, "Used Goods"! I hope to watch them in better venues where people are more receptive. It's only a natter of time.
En ståtlig föreställning!!
As for Voxtrot, I was in the back. As I was chatting and dancing with friends, Ramesh, the band's lead singer, was singing along to Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)" as he was setting up. I like Voxtrot, but missed them several times this year for reasons I forget at the moment. They opened up with "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives." It was a fun start. Then they played "Raised by Wolves" which is one of my favourites. After that, it was a wash. I don't know why I lost focus or didn't pay attention to them after "Raised by Wolves." Maybe it was because I was destracted by thoughts of what was to happen the day after at work. Or could it be the greatness of Love is All!! Probably both. But, Voxtrot, they were good but it got boring. I think they need someone to harmonize with Ramesh. Once they do that simple thing, they will be an even better indie pop band.
Beer Ratings:
Love is All -
Voxtrot -
No comments:
Post a Comment