Running only a little late, the xx played six or so songs for a positively reverent crowd Friday afternoon. Their in-store performance at Sonic Boom Records in Ballard proved to be just as packed as the band’s later already sold-out engagement at Neumos was slated to be. Shut-out from the night’s drinking-age-only hot ticket brought no small amount of under-agers through the door, and they filled every un-taken space in the store’s many aisles and nooks. And judging on this turnout alone, a measure of the success of their first go-around the states one might say, this trio has genuinely out-hyped nearly every recent virgin ambassador the Isles have sent our way, and then some. I think I can say with very little hyperbole, though their new record has been on the shelves a mere three months, that this London three-piece are riding a wave of momentum that’s starting to reach tsunami proportions. (And we thought Fanfarlo had it good.)
Timing is everything, but making use of your moment in the internet age often means sending young untested bands (such as this) on the road as soon as possible, often while still nascent, and the international rise from obscurity has already been abrupt for these barely twenty-year olds. Earlier this month, following a successful CMJ introducing them to America, they suffered the loss of their second guitarist, an unfortunate occurrence just when a palpable buzz had developed around their quietly romantic boy-girl sound. Now singer Romy Madley Croft is all alone on guitar and both she and bassist/singer Oliver Sim are pitching in on effects where they can fill in.
Drama aside, the steamy dynamic portrayed by Sim and Croft is even more enchanting once one see’s it play out on the stage. Mostly because they aren’t really playing anything out, they’re just singing, and the whole is much more than the sum of it’s parts. All in black, Croft appears adorably shy and awkward, while Sim is possibly just as awkward in his lanky frame and bounty of gold chains. One imagines these songs to be conversations between lovers of deep connection, the tension of their attraction an inescapable cloud over every interaction. Instead they come across as meditations on love by ones still discovering, still unjaded by it’s myriad causes and effects.
If you hadn’t noticed, it’s been a Maldives kind of week at Sound on the Sound… and all over Seattle for that matter.
Tonight, the band is finishing their third night of sold out shows at The Tractor Tavern. Since playing three nights in a row to a packed house isn’t enough, the band snuck in a full set during an in-store performance this afternoon at Sonic Boom records. And since seeing the band last night wasn’t enough for us, we went. Here are a couple videos from the afternoon set.
I actually saw music nerds discussing music and pawing over vinyl and stuff. Boxes and boxes of $1 CD’s out front. Not bad CD’s even. I got lost in the listening stations for an hour or so. And as a result I finally picked up the Helio Sequence album. I know. I’m slow on the pickup sometimes.
Aja over at the Weekly checks in with John of the Hands. The Hands are releasing their self titled LP February 19. Their release show, originally scheduled at the Crocodile is now February 29 at Chop Suey with a promise of Whore Hands Redux! I’m there.
Sonic Boom to close Fremont location. The owners say their simply revising their business strategy, and having two stores just a few miles from each other didn’t seem feasible any longer. Still sad because the store seemed to fit in with the funky style of Fremont.
Be in a Lonely H Video! Their shooting in Wallingford in the evening this Sunday and need some bodies. Details here.
For the rabid Ten Clubbers out there: A Matt Cameron side-project, Harrybu McCage, will be at the Showbox on January 26 for a benefit for Central Washington flood victims. Also on the bill are local rockers Surface Tension, Iris I and Windowpane, three Seattle bands who I had yet to hear of until investigating this benefit. That’s what I get for not listening to KISW, or any radio beside KEXP for that matter. Harrybu McCage doesn’t seem to have a myspace page, but if the rest of the bands myspace pages are any indication, it will end up somewhere between prog and pretty heavy rock.
If you’re lucky enough to see a band more than once, you’re bound to see a range in quality of performances. No band made this more painfully clear in 2007, than long time favorites of mine, Cursive. Both shows were enjoyable spectacles, but for completely different reasons, as you shall see.
February 2007: Tim Kasher with a fresh black eye, an hour, late, fall down drunk, and passed out on the mic at a sober show in a lunchroom at The University of Washington.
May 2007: Tim Kasher, as the world’s most affable front-man, playing an acoustic set at Sonic Boom Records.
I think the shots are equally fitting portraits of Tim… we all have our own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
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