Icky Try

The White Stripes' long overdue record was a bit of a dissappointment. The lead hit, Icky Thump was the rage of bloggers and music reporters alike, but when it came down to it, it fell a bit short. Yeah it's fucking great in a hard rocking way, but if you really listen to the song, it doesn't sonically add up! Effect and Cause was a nice little moral they tried to slip in there, but it wasn't anything we haven't seen in the first album and Rag and Bone was a blast from the past... Van Halen's Hot for Teacher style! The best track on the record by far was Conquest. They picked their brain a bit farther for this one... and it shows!

Victor Bravo @ Club Midway

This local band really gave it all they had. “Victor Bravo,” an indie post-punk rock trio with a powerful drummer a female bassist made the Midway their own last night.
The band’s self-produced, self-released Album contains 4 low sound quality songs with a potential to go farther than the meager audience that cheered to their amazing stage presence.
The best song, “Where are you, you Motherfucker?” really came through as Collin, the lead vocalist was bouncing his eyes from left to right as if he were really looking for “the motherfucker.” This is when it dawned on me: these guys aren’t just your average local-band-trying-to-make-it-big-without-any-real-talent, they are performers who create the kind of atmosphere you might like to find yourself in after a long straining week.

Arctic Monkeys- Favorite Worst Nightmare

The Sheffield quartet has invaded the US with their new record Favorite Worst Nightmare. And this time, they brought some of the most addictive beats since the Libertines. They drastically sped up the tempo of their tunes, and are ready to take over the Yanks. “Brianstorm”, the record’s first single is an earful. I was a bit put off by the rhythm of that song, but once you get into it, it’s gonna be stuck in your head for a while. “Old Yellow Bricks” is likely to make you hum the bass until your friends beat it out of you.
The witty humorous lyrics we liked so much in “Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not” are most prevalent in “D is for Dangerous” and “Balaclava.” Turner amuses us with petty details in the opening sequence of “Balaclava”, before the song really breaks in to the actual melody, he concludes the sequence with a spot-on detail of realism “I’m sure you’ll baffle him good/with the ending reek/ of salty cheeks and runny make-up alone.” And this climax build-up is really what this new record is all about.

Cold War Kids, Tokyo Police Club @ The Middle East (Boston)

Once you get past the obnoxious bouncers, the Middle East is actually a pretty good indie venue: dark and small. The first act, Delta Spirit, started out well but didn't follow through. They played two or three crowd-pleasing songs, then failed to keep up the good work. Pity, they started out really well.

Now, Tokyo Police club were awesome. They organized their set-list very well; playing "If It Works" first to warm up the people in the crowd who might not have heard of them then they slipped in "Citizen Of Tomorrow" during the middle of the show. All this time, fans of the band were really only waiting for one song: "Nature Of The Experiment" which they played right at the end of their cathartic gig.

But none of it even compared to Cold War Kids! They started off with "We Used to Vacation" and "Red Wine, Success" and really warmed up the audience. By the time they started playing "Hang Me Up To Dry," they managed to re-create a kind of '80's indie rock vibe on ecstasy. After this they could have done no wrong...but still they kept pushing the musical envelope. To our great surprise "Hospital bed" or "Hang Me Up To Dry" didn't not make the number one on our list, because that night, it was unanimously and incontestably "Saint John." They were joined by the two opening acts and the enthralled singing crowd to coordinated a sort of noise-music that projected us into a nirvana of sounds. They followed with five more songs, which included "Pass the Hat" and "God Make Up Your Mind" that were a bit more mellow to round up the evening nicely. Nicely done, Kids!

All Hail to the Mewsical Talents of Copenhagen

Mew, like an old school band, is getting better with age. They spoiled the audience with some superb intros that kept them on their toes. When the intros led into the songs, the results were cathartic.
But like any old school band, or the Beatles in particular, the climatic screams of the overjoyed fans were followed by a consistent sing along. For the less intense fans of the Danish trio (they lost their Bassist to marriage…), the fanatics really ruined the essence of the show.
The first song from the Good-Concert-Bad-Karaoke series was “156”. After the teenage fans’ own 30 seconds screaming intro, they screeched along with the Jasper.
Despite the endless shrieks, the rest of us were able to appreciate the better renditions of the band’s extensive discography. The legendary “Zookeeper’s Boy”, the intoxicating guitar intro of “Snow Brigade”, and the heavily commercialized “Special” got the crowd’s loudest cheers. These songs really were the most sonically reworked of the concert and it came through.
Call me a sucker for dark, fatalistic chords, but last night the ones that really got to me were “Apocalypso” and “Comforting Sounds”. With Mew, the more intense the song, the more energy you are going to get from the stage. These two last hits got what the rest of the concert was most lacking: stage energy that filled the room.

MuteMath @ Gramercy Theatre

After two amazing opening acts, what kind of show would MuteMath have put on for this crowd? Whatever they had to do was done last night. MuteMath plays a kind of experimental rock that sounds a bit like an electronica version of a fusion between The Police and Air.
The band started out with their signature intro of “Collapse” and “Typical” and completely nailed it. The record track does not even compare to their performance anymore. The audience went nuts. Before they even had time to catch their breath, Darren King had already started battering the beat of Chaos on his drums. By then, utter madness was unleashed. The crowd clapped along to the fast-paced beat of the song.
The best song of the show was probably “Plan B.” Greg Hill started it off with a mind-blowing guitar intro, King backed it up with his powerful beats and Roy Mitchell-Cardenas, bass, just sent the song on an express ride to “you can’t top it”-ville.
After Mitchell-Cardenas and King synchronized a beat for “Obsolete,” Paul Meany said, “ The next song is called control and I’m gonna need a lot of voices for this one.” The moshpit totally agreed and by the end of the song, Meany turned the microphone over to the crowd singing, “It’s such a beautiful surrender.” Before they left the stage, the band preformed a version of “Reset,” which was quite frankly out of this world.
After the encore, the band played three last songs that ended in an instrumental euphoria, and King’s set scattered all over the stage.

Set List:
Collapse
Typical
Chaos
Picture
Voice
Plan B
Stare At The Sun
Obsolete
Control
You Are Mine
Noticed
Break The Same
Reset
(Encore)
Sooner
Without It
Ok

Typical :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqiVIgiN8zo

Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin @ Gramercy Theatre

Drummer, Phil Dickey, likes to spice things up a bit. After he switched position, mid-gig, with guitarist John Robert Cardwell, Dickey jumped off the stage onto the security platform in front. Only his feet got stuck in the cables at bit…
“That was thoroughly rock and roll,” said Deanna Wallach, photographer with the Cinematics who high-fived him after he plugged all the cables back in. “Really that was stellar. He’s amazing. ”
Right on! They are all amazing, they’re the “we-do-our-own-thing” kind of band, and though we don’t necessarily understand why they do it, we love it! Just like we loved “Pangea” and “Boring Fountain.” The overall vibe of their performance was a more chilled out, “friends-rocking-in-their-basement” kind of gig. They started playing “Oregon Girl” immediately after the sound check. They just blew the crowd away. The rotating band finished off the performance with the addictive riffs of “Ocean-O.” The next time they will come to New York, these Missourians might just be their own main show…

Set list:
Oregon Girl
I am Warm and Powerful
Pangea
House Fire
Boring fountain
Modern
Half-Wake
You could write a book
OCEAN-O

Highlights of The Show:

Oregon Girl:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXXsxZ0CNPo&mode=user&search=

Pangea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4bUqqCZ4Xo&mode=related&search=

Boring Fountain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K_BcZCphgk&mode=user&search=

Ocean-O:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD44DcjSsvs&mode=user&search=