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From the moment she stepped onto Athens’ 40 Watt stage, Michelle Zauner captivated with her easy, self-assured energy and verve. Donning a white jumpsuit with winged shoulder pads, she could have been mistaken for an angel even before she started singing, and I am confident that I was in the majority when I fell in love over the ensuing hour. She played a set that peaked and relented at the perfect moments, delighting the tightly-packed crowd seemingly just by being herself. Cute, whimsical, and raw, she interacted with the crowd in a more personal way than many artists, responding to intermittent shouts of “you’re doing great!” with sincere appreciation, quipping at one point “Athens is just like a self-help book.” She reiterated several times that the night was Japanese Breakfast’s debut in Athens, and sang the town’s praises, fostering a sublimely warm and intimate atmosphere.
In my opinion, the live version of Japanese Breakfast was much more arresting than the recorded version of Japanese Breakfast. The soundscapes even more lush, the bass lines even more grooving, the excitement palpable – Zauner expended much of her energy at the beginning of the show jumping around during “Machinist” and “Road Head,” at one point sauntering between opposite corners of the stage and leaning down into the audience, eliciting wild cheers. She even graced the people of Athens with a new song, “2042,” guitar-driven and relatively subdued. Obviously enjoying herself, she confessed between songs that this was a “dream come true” before the lights faded from purple to blue and she said endearingly “we’re gonna play some quiet ones if that’s…chill.” When the bassist and drummer quietly disappeared, the silence emphasized the chattier people in the crowd, but when Zauner’s voice pierced the air with “Till Death,” it quickly shut everyone in the room up. She went on to play “This House” to an engrossed audience, continuing a trend of playing songs mostly from her slightly fuller sophomore album “Soft Sounds From Another Planet,” released last year, but Psychopomp was also well-represented. Zauner dialed the energy back up with “Rugged Country” and appropriately punctuated her set with the head-bobbing, feel-good “Everybody Wants to Love You.” Perhaps for being such a well-behaved, positive audience, Athens was treated to what was apparently “the second encore we’ve ever done”, in which Japanese Breakfast played the rockin’ “Diving Woman.” And just like that, an ethereal, euphoric concert experience was capped, but the sound of Zauner’s haunting voice blanketing the atmosphere is still ringing in the back of my head, to my absolute pleasure.
Last time Rainbow Kitten Surprise played in Athens, Georgia, they played a single show at one of Athens’ mid-sized venues: the 40 Watt. Two years later, on Tuesday, April 3, they returned to Athens with Ohio-based folk band CAAMP for a show at one of the largest and most iconic venues in Athens: the Georgia Theatre. This explosion in popularity for the band in the Athens scene shows just how rapidly the band’s fanbase is growing worldwide. Rainbow Kitten Surprise, an alternative/indie group from Boone, North Carolina, fits right into the Athens music scene, and this showed during the concert by the sheer number of times the crowd knew all the lyrics to a song. Despite their rapid growth in popularity, the band hasn’t forgotten their history with Athens. After performing a song, lead singer Sam Melo asked the crowd who attended their previous show at the 40 Watt two years ago. Melo even remembered the name of the bar that he hung out with fans at after the show.
Rainbow Kitten Surprise made their entrance by walking out to a song reminiscent of “I Wanna Be Like You” from the Jungle Book soundtrack. The lighthearted song set the scene for the band’s stage presence throughout the show. The closeness between the band members could be seen in how they all interacted and joked with each other on stage as well as in how they fed off each other’s energy during songs. This made the show feel more relaxed as the audience got a peek at the comradery between the bandmates.
The band’s newest album, How to: Friend, Love, Freefall, is due for release this Friday, April 6, so it should be no surprise that the setlist for the show contained a healthy amount of songs from the new album mixed in with classic hits from older albums. The band started off with a hit from their soon-to-be-released album called “Fever Pitch”. As the show progressed, the band performed classics like “Cocaine Jesus” and “Devil Like Me”, which the audience ate up. The band lit up when the audience would unanimously sing back all the lyrics to these classics. Sprinkled into the set were a few more unreleased songs from their upcoming album. Some of the songs included powerful spoken word verses, similar to parts in older songs like “That’s My Shit”.
A variety of themes were explored in Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s new songs as well. Before starting one of the new songs, bassist Charlie Holt called out the devastating effects of the opioid epidemic across the United States before the band launched into a song exploring the suicidal and lethal effects that drug addiction can have on someone. One of the opening lyrics of the song stuck with me: “Try not to kill myself today”. The band isn’t afraid to be blunt with lyrics, and this heightens the emotional intensity in their music.
The emotional intensity didn’t come solely from the lyrics though. Lead singer Sam Melo performed the lyrics with a variety of expressions. On more upbeat songs, he would kick and twirl around on the stage in an odd way, but this only added to the energy present on stage. While he sang, Melo’s face would contort in various expressions and he would use animated hand gestures, almost as if he was acting out the lyrics or performing a free expression dance. Melo seemed to be telling tales through the lyrics as well as through his expressions and gestures, and this drew the audience further into the show.
The band exited the stage and promptly returned for not one but two encore performances. At one point during the second encore, Melo took off his shirt during “Run” and even entered the crowd at one point during “That’s My Shit”. The band left the crowd feeling electrified, exuberant, and content with the fact that there was no better way to spend a beautiful Tuesday night in Athens.
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*All photos taken by Emily McBride at the Historic Scoot Inn in Austin, TX at SXSW 2014.
What’s up? We’re Diarrhea Planet, and we just woke up!!
It was the final day of South by Southwest, and the guys from Diarrhea Planet were taking the stage as I was waiting outside the gates of Austin’s Historic Scoot Inn. It was a rainy Saturday with an uncharacteristically long wait time for an early afternoon showcase. The line swelled with anxious concertgoers recovering from the night before as skateboard-wielding kids leaned against the chain link fence eagerly anticipating the impending shredfest. It has become a Vinyl Mag tradition to spend the last day of the festival with Diarrhea Planet. Last year, we literally bumped into them on the street before their final showcase at the Jackalope, which to this day remains one of my top five favorite shows of all time. I honestly can’t think of a better way to close out that epic week of music than to be drenched in sweat at the end of one of their sets.
The dudes were three songs in when I finally entered the yard, so I hustled to the bar, grabbed a Lone Star (you know, nothin’ snooty), and jumped over mud puddles to get closer to the action. I came in midway through “Lite Dream,” the first track off I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, as frontman Jordan knelt perched on the speaker platform at the front of the stage like a gargoyle – tongue out with each note of the solo seemingly pouring down from his open mouth past his fingertips before landing precisely on the fretboard. He was later joined on the platform by guitarists Brent, Evan, and Emmett, where back to back they formed a four-headed monster, aiming their guitars at the sky as if in tribute to the gods before turning them on the audience like AK’s of shred. Simply put, these guys play with impassioned stage presence and waste no time getting after it.
Meanwhile, Mike seems content to lurk in the shadows while chugging out underrated bass lines as drummer Casey powers the band with unrivaled heaviness in his sticks. Evan and Emmett sway back and forth periodically in choreographed fashion, with Evan sarcastically miming wiping sweat off of his forehead – a signature move that displays the band’s sense of humor. Crowd interaction is also a major component of Diarrhea Planet’s now legendary live shows. During their infectiously energizing performance, they awarded the first eight crowd surfers a free t-shirt that read “Diarrhea is the new F**k” – further displaying how seriously these guys take themselves. At one point, Evan had a girl photographer climb on top of his shoulders before parading her through the crowd while effortlessly fulfilling his guitar duties.
They roared through the remainder of their set, playing a nice mix of old and new. Two weeks later, I had the chance to see them again at New Earth Music Hall in Athens, Georgia when they were back to make up for a van-induced cancellation earlier in the year. They took the stage after midnight, sincerely apologizing for missing their previous date, and filled the room with over an hour of the catchy ear-ringing, shred-driven skate punk they do better than anyone.
As they broke down their gear after each one of these shows, it was clear that everyone was impressed with what they had just seen. Too many bands these days look like they’re just phoning it in – dialing up impossible to reproduce melodies and licks from their studio sessions in an effort to earn gas money to get from this city to the next. Diarrhea Planet is a rarity – their live show is actually better than any of their records, which is the highest compliment I can give a band. When they finish their set, you can be absolutely sure of one thing: these guys are having a blast.
After all, live shows are supposed to be a good time, and this seems to be the one thing Diarrhea Planet truly takes seriously. And for that, we should all be grateful.
I didn’t tear up during Austra’s heart-wrenching “Home,” with Katie Stelmanis’ opera-trained vocals and strong repetitive keyboard transitioning into upbeat —but still terribly lonely— electro-pop. I wasn’t alone in my car this time; I was at a dive-bar and venue in East Atlanta called The Earl, staring at Stelmanis’ knee-length culottes and platform shoes, the neon blinking umbrella-lights, and the instruments amid the ever-glowing MacBooks…and I was dancing— I hate dancing.
My rhythm-less moves were irrelevant — Stelmanis herself dances like a football player stretching, shifting her weight between feet as she squats behind the keyboard. “So, I dance with nothing/ So, I dance for free,” Stelmanis sang, opening the set with “What We Done?,” a reminder that if music moves me, it’s my move to make. Perhaps it was this that let me lose myself; perhaps it had something to do with the comfort brought by her casual presence in the crowd during the opening band, DIANA.
If I hadn’t already noticed, DIANA’s frontwoman, Carmen Elle, still would have given away the band’s whereabouts. “Out of all the bands we’re touring with, Austra is our favorite,” Elle told the audience, pointing out the members and coiling back, admitting her ‘dad joke,’ as the two Toronto-based bands are the only ones on the tour. Elle’s conversational nature flowed throughout their set like their heavy bass, personifying the band’s dreamy chillwave not only with her ethereal airy vocals but also comments to the crowd. Slowly grooving in an oversized tee shirt and a baseball cap, while occasionally sipping from a mug rather than the usual bottled water or can of beer, Elle seemed a model for the tranquilized sleepy 80’s sound of DIANA. With only one eight-track album, Perpetual Surrender, the setlist was hardly a surprise, though the show allowed amplification and improvisation as everything got a few notches louder, faster, and more melodramatic. When DIANA closed with New House, which was cheesily dedicated to Atlanta, the audience seemed sadder to say goodbye than impatient to get on with the headlining act — a rarity as refreshing as the word “y’all” seemed to be for Elle.
This sentiment drastically reversed with the arrival of the fashionably late. Anxiety grew with cramping of the front row, and the many minutes spent waiting seemed longer as the members of Austra could be clearly seen past the corridor marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY.” Single-file, they stepped onstage — the female drummer, the swankily dressed bassist, the male keyboardist in shorty shorts and lipstick, and the beautiful face and voice of the band, Katie Stelmanis. Applause settled, and with the quiet open for “What We Done?,” Stelamanis’ vocals were naked and fresh against the humid air filling the venue — serenading an explosion halfway through the song, as what begins as shy becomes upbeat and sexy. Paving the way for the set, more songs from their sophomore album Olympia were played, though fans didn’t groan at the idea of hearing mostly newer songs — they welcomed it, especially with gems like “Painful Like,” “Forgive Me,” and their darkest pop track, “Home.” Of course, fans were also relieved to hear some tracks from their debut album, Feel It Break, namely “Beat and The Pulse,” which everybody seemed to preserve the most energy for. “The Choke” and “Darken Her Horse” also had fans enamored with the band’s understanding that all great dance tracks have to build tension before letting it break free. When slow drumbeats met the chiming high-pitch keyboard for “Lose It,” the crowd did just that, alongside Stelmanis’ wordless soprano and her duet with DIANA’s Elle in the last verse.
Numbed by Austra’s live performance of opera uniquely blended with synthesized goth-pop, it was easy to forget that the lit umbrellas lining the stage were the only visuals accompanying the show. It was easy to forget that the back-up vocalists, twins from the band Tasseomancy, were absent from the venue — leaving the drummer, Maya Postepski, to chime in. I almost forgot that a personal favorite, “The Future,” was nicked from the setlist. Though none of these missing pieces left the show feeling incomplete — Austra’s music, Stelmanis standing at the edge of the stage belting lyrics with a vocal range I can only imagine would feel truly painful after over an hour of singing, was enough. They didn’t mask their set with visual performance, because they didn’t need to.
If Stelmanis’ vocal chords hurt, she didn’t let fans know. Instead, she stood by the merch table with her bassist and members of DIANA, humoring fans wanting pictures instead of tee shirts. Rather than sneaking out early, she stayed late, saying, “I’ve got nowhere to be” as they thanked her for her time.
I left the venue feeling giddy, those lonely lyrics to “Home” still ringing in my head.
