Jenny Lewis, den mother of millennial hippies and all bespeckled in her sherbert rainbow pantsuit, made a triumphant return to the Georgia Theatre this past Wednesday night. Why triumphant? As Lewis noted in between divinely delivered pop geodes, the last time she played Athens – or tried to – the Theatre was going through some fire troubles. “The marquee was a melty ‘Jenny Lewis’ for weeks,” she joked. But thank goodness GATH was still standing this time around, because man, what a show.
Despite the highly anticipated Voyager-themed stage set, one Lewis described as “bronies on acid,” she played a pretty even mix of new material, old solo songs, and Rilo Kiley classics. Of course she played “Portions For Foxes,” but she also dug up older stuff like “With Arms Outstretched” and “You Are What You Love.” Every song was met with more rapturous applause and girlish (for some, guyish) screaming than the last. The audience, a near sold-out crowd, was in one of two modes: transfixed or Beatlemania-ing. It was like seeing their hero transported them back to the first time one of Lewis’ songs spoke to their souls (probably somewhere around their first breakup, but that’s just a guess), which is exactly what great music is supposed to do: act as a time machine.
But the only person in the room even happier than the crowd was Lewis herself. Even though she tried to play coy by busting out her evident acting background – strutting around stage with her hand in her pocket like a self-important businessman, gingerly handing a fan a single rose, taking every opportunity to climb monitors like a conquering Athena. But eventually neither she nor her band could hide their sheer joy at every singing-along face. They were even good sports when humongous pink and blue balloons were unleashed, and certain audience members thought it apt to keep punching them onstage. When they closed out their pre-encore set with “A Better Son/Daughter,” it felt like a genuine call to arms for anyone going through a sea change (get it? Nautical puns?), and Lewis dedicated “Girl On Girl” to women in bands everywhere – a much appreciated dedication these days. After the band took their post-encore bows, it was implicitly clear that the Theatre’s comeback wasn’t official without a, er, metaphorical Jenny Lewis barnburner.
Bonus fun fact: Lewis’ favorite shoe store is Kum’s, for when she’s in need of mismatched Keds from the 1980’s.
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Ponce de Leon stage at Mac DeMarco. Photo by aLIVE Coverage.
“Incredible.” “Epic.” “Unreal lineup.” “Best festival I’ve ever been to.”
I heard all of these descriptions last weekend at Shaky Knees Festival, and I echoed them in spades. No complaints whatsoever.
For a festival that’s only in its third year, Shaky Knees is already topping my list of favorite fests.
The lineup was absurdly impressive. When it was announced back in January, I just stared at the screen in awe. On Day One, I saw Surfer Blood (Vinyl Video coming soon!), Haerts, Jukebox the Ghost, Tennis, The Kooks, Mac DeMarco, Manchester Orchestra, TV On The Radio, American Football, Brand New, the Pixies, and The Strokes! Seriously. That was just Day One.
Day One was a perfect lineup all day, but we really have to talk about The Strokes. They completely blew me away. We were late (as in on time for them to start, late finding a spot to stand) getting to their set, because High School Emily had to finally fulfill the need to see Brand New live (apparently I’m not too old to mosh yet), so we were pretty far back. Didn’t matter. They were absolutely amazing live. Playing for an hour and half – unheard of at a music festival – they kept it fresh and energetic the entire time. Every time I thought I had gotten my fill and they had covered every song I wanted to hear, they would pull out another classic, and I would start jumping up and down and screaming along with them again. From beginning to end, their show was a perfect setlist, excellent sound quality, and pure energy. I’m already ready to see them again.
Day Two was just as packed. I walked in and immediately got up to the front at Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band. It was my fifth time seeing him and definitely not my last. His shows are bare, with no bells and whistles. No overblown light show. Simple and loud and without distraction, letting the music speak for itself. His stage banter is off the cuff and often self-deprecating, with no pretense whatsoever. Kevin is the most unassuming rockstar I’ve ever seen, but he’s a true rockstar. His calming sweet singing is quiet, hushing the whole room before the inevitable breakdown that always comes, and he brings out the gravely screams and the violent, spastic guitar solos. Barely noon, and I was already head banging.
Other highlights of the day included Speedy Ortiz (who, admittedly, could have worked on their stage presence a little), Viet Cong (bring the noise!), Palma Violets (one of the best of the entire weekend), Real Estate, The Devil Makes Three, The Black Lips, Built to Spill, Milky Chance, ZZ Ward, and, of course, Neutral Milk Hotel (yes, Avett Brothers headlined – sorry, just not my thing). NMH was a long time coming for me, and I nearly cried as they nostalgically made their way through every Aeroplane song I’ve been dying to hear live for 10 years (I’m a youngin).
By Day Three, I was fully sunburned (with a super weird tan-line – thank you, off-shoulder crop top), and my feet were killing me. Both problems I fully blame myself for, having forgotten sunscreen Day One and packed stupidly flat soled shoes. Fortunately for me, I’m a trooper. Plus, the instant I walked into the park that morning, I ran smack into Bethany from Best Coast who was gracious enough to pretend that she remembered me when I told her that I was one of the thousands of people she met for two minutes at South by Southwest. And then I immediately found $10 and bought some tacos with it. Hard to complain about anything after that morning.
The best of Day Three for me was, of course, my darling Best Coast, as well as Diamond Rugs and Ryan Adams. The Both was awesome and mellow live, though their awkward stage banter made it seem like they had never spent a moment together off-stage.
This year was flawless. I can’t think of a single aspect of the fest that wasn’t perfectly planned out, from the helpful staff/volunteers to the location to the layout of the app.
Let’s talk about the app for a minute actually. Best festival app I’ve ever used. Of course it had the usual – radio, lineup, schedule, etc. But the most helpful/genius parts were the food truck locator and the map – it’s a big park.
The festival producers had every base covered. Even if you didn’t have the app, they had your back when you walked in, handing you a pocket-sized booklet complete with schedule, late night show details, and yes, the map, outlining a masterfully laid out fest (I know this is starting to sound like I’m being paid by Shaky Knees publicists, but I swear I was just that impressed). Every problem they had last year – mainly, we just remember the lack of space – was solved with the location move to Central Park. The stages were perfectly spaced out so that you could get from show to show without feeling like you were trekking through the Dead Marshes on the way to Mount Doom but far enough away that no stage’s music interfered with another. Besides that, there would always be a good place to stand – thank Nature for tree shade.
Another huge – and literally refreshing – thing at this festival was the Free. Freaking. Water. It’s a revelation. Where five dollars is typically a generous bottle rate at fests, this is absolutely groundbreaking. Buy or bring a bottle, and you get unlimited refills throughout the fest. No more extreme dehydration. No more weighing the opportunity cost of a fun beer or smart water. Please let this be the new standard for festivals.
All in all, Shaky Knees completely nailed it. Amazing lineup. Excellent scheduling so hardly any of the bands I wanted to see overlapped. Great app that I actually used instead of making my own schedule. So many drink (and water) stations. One of the best festival experiences I have ever had. The lineup was enough, but the details and thought put into it put it over the top and made it effortless and stress-free for me. Again, please let this be the new standard for festivals.
Our traditional lists:
Top 10 Shows of Shaky Knees:
1. The Strokes
2. Neutral Milk Hotel
3. Diamond Rugs
4. Pixies
5. Palma Violets
6. Best Coast
7. Tame Impala
8. Mac DeMarco
9. Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band
10. Brand New
Best discovery of the weekend: The Devil Makes Three
If you’re still unsure just how prevalent 80s nostalgia is in today’s scene, pick up a shovel and dig the new Vaccines track. The playfully cool new track (off of their 5/26 release English Graffiti) uses the same faux string synth spurts that made you love your kiddie Casio back in the day. The track is full of crunchy swagger, drenched in leather and neon. Its Ratatat verses and Strokes choruses make it sound as big and bold and the Vaccines’ ambitions.
Despite having only been around for five years, this is a pretty damn confident-sounding group of dudes. Don’t write off “Minimal Affection” as a grab on a recent sonic trend – as with manyrecently releasedsongs, its lyrics tackle the dissonance between disaffection and desire in today’s youths (cue Liz Lemon gif). In a world seemingly bereft of ‘true affection’, maybe the only refuge left to find it is in a less-than-suitable relationship “when we don’t have a lot in common.” Most of us generally want the same things, but we’re also getting tricked into thinking we shouldn’t. The Vaccines brilliantly pair this sentiment with similarly disaffected music, cool on the surface but barely containing the bursts of fuzzy emotion that keep breaking through.
Reptar have shared the music video for their new single “Amanda,” and it’s (expectedly) a weird one. Two girls in white take turns putting weird fruit in each other’s mouths, and there’s some fun and casual waterboarding. It’s footage that could very well show up on your local public access station, placed there by local community college art kids. Given the song’s alluded-to themes about love and pain and long distance relationships, the vignettes seem to be commentaries on the small ways we hurt the ones we love the most.
“Amanda” recalls early Vampire Weekend, when they still had a massive hard-on for Graceland. It’s not as overloaded and excited a production as the first couple Reptar records – our boys have figured out how to get their ideas across while being economical with their sound. At first, vocals and xylophone reign; even when the smartly arranged horns come in, the room to breathe is refreshing and entrancing.
Lurid Glow is out now via Joyful Noise Recordings.
In the ongoing tradition of employing grotesque imagery, Sufjan Stevens’ tour-only song “Exploding Whale” has been leaked online. Thanks to a Reddit user, and with permission from Stevens’ label Asthmatic Kitty Records, the plinky, wandering track is now available to us all. It’s more Kid A than the offerings on his most recent record Carrie & Lowell, drawing comparisons to his previous album The Age of Adz. Its last minute goes from lightly peppered synths to full on autotune, but the whole track is supremely pretty – yet still subdued and understated, as it never fully swells as grandiosely as it could.
As with Sufjan’s other work, he manages to make art school vagueness feel frighteningly personal and intimate. It’s unfortunately commonplace these days for songs to use a gracelessly hashtagged title, but Stevens seems unironic in his plea for us to embrace his “epic fail.” Between this and the song’s title, it’s a possible allusion to Twitter’s fail whale – and, more broadly, the attention span-less social age in which we live. This is most apparent at the song’s beginning, when Stevens sings, “I’m nobody’s friend / Loneliness rides in my bed / My misfortune / Give everything you’ve got / While the sun burns hot, my addiction / Spoils my affection for everything good.”
(It’s also worth mentioning the single’s ace artwork, featuring an as-of-yet unexploded mobster whale who’s probably about to utter the word “sweetheart.”)
Last night, the 40 Watt hosted two newfangled Americana bands, firekid and Delta Spirit. Despite a sparse crowd and little fanfare, firekid – a two-piece Nashville group – delivered an interesting and varied set of reimagined roots music. Initially, they seemed like a group in the vein of Shy Girls, mixing whispered vocals with plucked guitar and hip hop beats. But it soon became clear that they were aiming for something bigger and not heard before. Singer/guitarist/sampling maestro Dillon Hodges and drummer Josh Kleppin combine traditional bluegrass and tex mex guitar picking – very skilled picking at that – with the hip hop beats of today’s top 40. The masterful guitar playing should come as no surprise, as Hodges won the National Guitar Championship at the age of 17, making him the second youngest person to ever do so. He struck as a contemporary of our own Sam Burchfield. Both traffic in blue-eyed soul that has clearly been practiced and perfected, and both are unabashed fans of big, poppy choruses, back porch cred be damned.
Hodges grew up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which any music fan worth their salt knows as the birthplace of much of our favorite soul and southern oldies, a creative hotbed in the middle of nowhere. The highlight of the set was a “song about hipsters,” as Hodges introduced it (the heavily hipster Watt crowd was nonplussed), chronicling a metal band who traded in axes for banjos when the winds of changes shifted. “Everybody’s chasin’ the Americana dream,” he deadpanned, slyly knocking groups like Mumford & Sons, whose recent aesthetic change from suspenders to leather jackets proves Hodges’ point. But ironically, despite the Alabaman and Nashvillian ethos firekid so clearly possesses, one could easily lump them in with the very same bro country/brograss movements that irk them.
The song about hipsters even seemed to defend bro country at one point, noting that if Hank Williams is spinning in his grave, it’s not due to what’s happening in Nashville. Any way you slice it, roots music is going through growing pains and identity crises out the wazoo these days, and firekid are a perfect example. The group’s Nashville relocation, and its old and new ways of doing things, were on full display in their songs like “Getaway Car” and “Lay By Me”. The group even covered pop hits like “Bang Bang” and “FourFiveSeconds”, albeit a little less powerfully than the songs’ originally tigresses – if you’re gonna cover Ariana or Rihanna, you’ve gotta COMMIT. Songs where Hodges’ guitar playing was front and center were miles ahead of the sample- and synth-laden ones – it didn’t help that the 40 Watt’s continuing sound problems drowned out his vocals and overpowered the drums. Fortunately, as Hodges revealed in our recent firekid interview, their upcoming record will heavily showcase his flatpicking. But no matter where your chronological preferences lie, this is quite literally a band like no other.
At first listen, Turbo Suit‘s Out Here transports you to another place. It immediately brings you to some huge field with new and old friends while you bask in all of summer’s glory and dance the day and night away. Maybe because warmer weather is closing in, and festival fever is rampant, but with it’s grandiose infectious sound, Out Here is sure to ramp up your excitement for the coming spring and summer months.
If Turbo Suit’s creativity evokes such strong feelings from a recorded electronic album, it’s pretty much a guarantee these seven songs with translate incredibly well live.
Over the past years the funkronica trio – comprised of David Embry on production and vocals, Nicholas Gerlach on tenor saxophone and EWI, and Jeff Peterson on drums – established themselves as Cosby Sweater, with the release of four albums and an abundant amount of touring. With growing negativity towards the word “Cosby,” the band morphed out of Cosby Sweater and into Turbo Suit earlier this year.
Out Here represents this evolution and shows the trio transforming into something that is fresh, fast, and stylish. Musically, the band has brought it to the next level with their new material. So, it only makes sense to “suit up” in a new vessel that showcases the band’s evolution from Cosby Sweater to Turbo Suit.
Joining Turbo Suit on this transformative journey are Jake Cinninger, Joel Cummins and Andy Farag (Umphrey’s McGee), Natalie Cressman (Trey Anastasio Band), Joe Hettinga and Marcus Rezak (Digital Tape Machine), Zion I, ProbCause, and Rusty Redenbacher. Each special guest leaves their unique mark on Out Here. From Cressman’s soulful vocals fused with Redenbacher’s rhymes to Joel Cummin’s funky keys, to hard hitting drum and bass to dreamy saxophone, this album is a nonstop musical ride that surprises you at every turn.
Starting the album off is the sexy “Rewind pt. 1” which balances the gritty hip hop rhymes of Redenbacher with Cressman’s delicately soothing vocals over groovy beats. While this may be one of the more slower songs on the album, this track is the perfect introduction to the new Turbo Suit. “Hourglass” takes it up a notch as it starts with an upbeat hip hop vibe that slows towards the middle and gives way to a smooth jazzy saxophone. With a slow build, the inevitable drop comes with a sound reminiscent to that of Big Gigantic.
The third song and first single “Coogi Wolf” is purely Turbo Suit. Agressive, loud, groovy, filthy…however you want describe it, there’s no doubt this is one of the hardest hitting songs on the album with an absolute rager of a peak accompanied by a blazing sax. “Rewind 2” brings us back to earth with a sleek velvety pulse concluding with quirky beats. The album picks up again with “Wake Up” and feeds right into the drum and base heavy “Divine.” With a hefty hitting dubstep beat and Middle Eastern synths so tight that they could charm a snake, Turbo Suits absolutely brings it with this one.
The personal favorite and album closer is “Karate” featuring Cummins and Rezak. This track is a funky free-for-all with dreamy synths and spacey rapturous keys and makes for the perfect ending.
Embry, Gerlach, and Peterson could not have done a better job at reintroducing themselves to the music world as Turbo Suit than with Out Here. This album is passively melodic and soothing when it needs to be while also managing to be a nasty in-your-face banger. This perfect balance and the ability to create music that seamlessly translates from recorded to live is exactly what will keep drawing old and new fans to Turbo Suit.
The Ravenna Colt is the side project of former My Morning Jacket guitarist Johnny Quaid, who co-founded MMJ with Jim James. He left the group in 2004 after the release of It Still Moves (taking with him the Kentucky farm they used to record on, incidentally changing their sound) and deigned to do what so many good ole boys have done: he moved west to find himself, and… became a carpenter? Yes, he went full Notebook on us.
Fortunately, he didn’t quit writing songs, and eventually had enough material to warrant moving back east to Tennessee, where twang dreams come true. As The Ravenna Colt, Quaid (nee John McQuade, but that doesn’t sound enough like the name of a Captain Planet associate, does it?) released 2010’s Slight Spell.
After that, Quaid moved again to Boise, Idaho and began working on what would become this year’s Terminal Current. This is a record full of lush, warm sounds that mimic Quaid’s own contrails – distinctly southern, but yearning to move toward America’s upper lefthand corners. Don’t get me wrong – My Morning Jacket’s influence is still heavily felt, especially in rhythmic tracks like “National Dander.”
Terminal Current is the same kind of sweetly sad, expansive western Americana that put the Jacket on the map. Yet it bears more resemblance to the more pedal steel-leaning side of contemporary roots music. This album is full of reverbed, lonesome waltzes that your favorite bar plays during closing time, much the same as Son Volt’s peanut shell-sweeping Honky Tonk.
Then again, reverb is beloved on both coasts, is it not? Songs like “Yutu” and “Absolute Contingency (Heartattack)” are the same sort of wavy, pensive beachcore tracks that Real Estate and Built To Spill deal in. Quaid sings of pioneers “With the strangest fear / And a fantastic chance / To leave behind / The filth and crime / And find somethin’ else,” and one gets the sense that he’s talking about his own life’s journey – it’s not insignificant that he left a band he helped create right before they gained enough staying power to reach indie rock’s upper echelon, only to move across the country and become a manual laborer.
Slight Spell obviously explored the emotional fallout that resulted, and Terminal Current is a continuation in some ways. The titular “Terminal Current” is the most explicit expression of the record’s loose plane theme, as its narrator slowly learns the true meaning of that adage about how you can’t go home again. But this record is also full of resolve at its author’s new direction, and sees Quaid get more comfortable in his solo shoes.
In the second single from Tame Impala‘s upcoming record, we find band mastermind Kevin Parker imploring his ladylove that he’s really sorry for hurting her feelings – but he just can’t help it, because he’s a dude.
Okay, pause. The song as a song is sublime Impala – pleasantly sluggish psychedelic garage rock that sounds like it was recorded at the wrong RPM on a vintage tape machine. It’s great music to listen to if you’re laying out, chilling in your room, or – and I’ll say it because we’re all thinking it – doing drugs.
Appealing sonic features aside, the whole premise of the song is a bit of a turn off. It reads like a bad non-apology that excuses bad behavior – “I’m sorry for what I did, but I couldn’t help it; this weak response excuses the same bad behavior in the future. Whew!” If this were being expressed through a veil of self-aware irony, that’s different. But Parker sounds genuinely saddened by his seemingly un-reign in-able self. “I have a conscience and it’s never fooled / But it’s prone to being overruled” he pleads to his woman, claiming to possess an emotional intelligence that he simply chooses to ignore at his convenience. We know you’re better than this, Kev!
Tame Impala’s new record Currents will be released later in 2015 on their new label, Interscope.
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Crowd during Reptar at Georgia Theatre. Photo by Chelsea Kornse
2015 has put another successful Slingshot Festival in the books. Despite hiccups here and there, this year’s festival drew unique and eclectic acts from around the world. Almost every band thanked the festival, and organizer Kai Riedl, for putting together such a fantastic offering, and I’d have to agree. But since we’re all bound by the physical impossibilities of linear time, my only regret is not seeing every act all at once. Where’s a Time-Turner when you need one, right?! Ba dum tsh. Anyways: it’s safe to say that another physical impossibility was having a bad time at any of these shows.
Thursday
Slingshot being a world-focused festival, it was more than appropriate to start things off with groups like Lassine Kouyate. Adam Klein, artist-about-town, has previously traveled to Mali for Peace Corps assignments and to visit friends he’s made there. A couple years ago he decided to go Graceland and record his own versions of traditional West African Mande roots music. He performed some of them at Hendershot’s as a six-piece, singing us songs about rebuilding after genocidal violence and the true price of blood diamonds.
Zarigani$. Photo by Hannah Pap RockiPeelander-Z. Photo by Ryan Myers
Japan Nite is a reliably supersonic experience, and the bands at Live Wire delivered. Zarigani$ was like a Japanese Death From Above 1979, throwing in random psychotic bass-tastic outbursts followed by ska influences and whistle playing. Somehow the vicious low-end punk still had a girly bounce, and even the dads in the crowd got into it. Peelander-Z were their usual colorful selves, playing duckpins and crowdsurfing with an ecstatic audience.
Andy Hull. Photo by Chelsea Kornse
Rounding out a packed first night was Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra flying solo at the Theatre. Between him, the single guitar, a trained spotlight, and a small crowd, the show was almost uncomfortably intimate. Like a conversation with close friends, he was deeply touched by the fans who showed up – especially when a few requested the deep cut “Colly Strings.” Hull dug into his solo and Manchester Orchestra discographies in backwards chronological order, with passionate and bone-chilling results.
Nosaj Thing. Photo by Christopher Fodera
Meanwhile, DJs like Nosaj Thing and Clark blew minds at the 40 Watt with hypnotic dubstep beats and laser shows that would be enough to seize out a dog. The Watt’s disco ball has never looked better.
Friday
Dream Boat. Photo by Jordan Hampton
Vinyl Mag likes to party – this should be no surprise. So we hosted a couple showcases, the first being at Caledonia on Friday and featuring Dreamboat, Nightmare Air, and a very special Washed Out DJ set.
Dreamboat were one of many of E6 offshoots to play the festival, with John Fernandes on violin. The band’s cosmic pop, Henry VIII-esque chamber pop guitar licks, and vocal harmonies were enough to bliss out the crowd, but the colorful orb projected onto the group made it official: Dreamboat lives up to their name. Think Smoke Faeries with a little bit of U2 bombast thrown in, and you can get the idea – every song left the audience so entranced, we almost forgot to clap.
Nightmare Air. Photo by Hannah Pap Rocki
Up next were Nightmare Air, Dreamboat’s polar opposite. Proclaimed the ‘loudest band in L.A.’, their literally amp-busting amplitude woke up a lulled and contented crowd. Appropriately employing a smoke machine to create some nightmare air, their angular punk-and-stadium rock tunes stared into the void, like a Shiny Toy Guns played through Dinosaur Jr. volume levels.
Washed Out (DJ set). Photo by Hannah Pap Rocki
Finally, Washed Out’s Ernest Greene brought his earnestly (sorry) chill vibes to the small space. Greene combined house, dub, funk, and hazy psych plinks to keep the crowd bobbing. To make things get weird a bit, he brought an hourlong cinema smash featuring disturbing images of dissections and war propaganda and advertisements for companies like Standard Oil, Mazda, and Jell-O. Essentially it was like Mad Men word association on acid (so maybe just a day in the life of Roger Sterling), or a hyperspeed iSpy book for adults only.
Lord Fascinator. Photo by Mercedes Bleth
Over at the Theatre, Lord Fascinator opened things up with his freaky instrumental techno, requiring audience participation in the form of pulling people onstage and dressing them in body suits with attached face masks.
Reptar. Photo by Chelsea Kornse
Up next were Reptar, playing an album release show for their upcoming Joyful Noise Recordings offering Lurid Glow. Somehow the show wasn’t as packed as theirs usually are, but it was just as fun. They played classics like “Cable” and used a giant slingshot (HAH) to shoot t-shirts into the crowd.
Saturday
Saturday saw the continuation of Slingshot’s film contingent, with several movies screened at the Globe for free to all. William And The Windmill tells the amazing and heartwarming story of William Kamkwamba, a Malawian who, at the age of 19, used scrap metal and an outdated book to build his village a water-pumping windmill. Next up was a short called Brooklyn Farmer about the rooftop gardens of New York’s ~coolest~ neighborhood. (Between these first two films, one might get their faith in humanity’s future genuinely restored, which is kind of Slingshot’s whole deal.) Next up was Palimpsest, a quirky short about a house tuner who’s on call if you think your toaster and shower aren’t in the same key. Finally, the last full feature Buttercup Bill is a tense ‘psychosexual romance’ about love, obsession, jealousy, and what it means to be a soulmate.
Vinyl Mag continued to throw down with its second showcase, featuring more E6 greatness in Mind Brains and Nana Grizol. Mind Brains opened things up with impassioned, Circulatory System-aping psychedelic explorations of the soul. Naturally they too had some freaky videography to go along with the experimental sounds, mostly putting bizarre insect habits on display (even though I am deathly terrified of bugs, I watched for you, reader, I WATCHED FOR YOU).
Closing out the early evening, Nana Grizol put the poppier side of E6 on display, with songs that could fit in anywhere in the discography of the Apples In Stereo. They also gave Live Wire’s sound guy a shoutout, and it was well-deserved – sound quality has been spotty in Athens venues recently, but the new management at Live Wire clearly hired a pro.
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Nightmare Air pre-set. Photo by Matt Lief Anderson.
