Voxtrot and Eat Sugar – 6/18 (Concert Review)
Posted by Eric in Concert Reviews, The Yellow Stereo
On the rare occasion I am treated to a show where the entire lineup of bands just blows me away. This last occured when I saw The Hold steady and The Thermals on St. Patty’s day. Unfortunately for me, that was not the case last evening, when I saw the combination of Voxtrot and Eat Sugar.
I was eagerly awaiting Voxtrot to come on stage and live up to the hype that they created with their SXSW shows that created internet buzz, along with their EP’s. Not having heard many tracks of their recently released self-titled debut (see Daily Graboid), I was curious to know how the sound translated in concert. To give a quick summary, it was average, to slightly above average.
The music came across just as I said about the albums, clean and crisp. Musically these guys are very talented, and to me they seem to fit into a poppier, happier Shins sort of catagory for me. Their music is very appealing to the ear, very light, and somewhat reminiscent of 50’s pop as well. I am unsure if they had a set list made out, I looked for it to no avail. They kind of inprovised the encore at the end, asking the audience what they should play. They disliked the Journey and Bruce Springsteen suggestions, instead just playing one final track.
While musically these guys were good, their stage prescence just wasn’t happening. I thought that maybe during the show that if I closed my eyes, I might have a better experience. I felt like the vocals sounded a little bit cheesy mixed with the actions of the band on stage. Also, I felt like the rhythm guitarist was a little disconnected from the rest of the band. Overall it was just kind of awkward for me. Maybe that was because I had just seen bands that had great stage prescence in The National, and Eat Sugar.
The Crowd didn’t help them out, as the place was no where near sold out and people didn’t seem like they were crazy into the music. But having played many shows previous to this one, I feel like that shouldn’t be a valid excuse.
Voxtrot – Myspace, Website, Amazon
The Start of Something
The opener for Voxtrot was a local Cincinnati band called Eat Sugar. A new band onto the scene, Eat Sugar consists of a drummer (Greg Ponaris), two synth players (Jim Reynolds and Erin Proctor), and a frontman (Aidin Bogosian). Reynolds and Proctor switch it up at various times during the show with a bass guitar.
These guys came out on fire, and just kept going. Sounding a little bit like LCD Soundsystem, they threw in a little bit of New Wave and topped their sound off with the punk/electro-grunge-ish sort of sound on vocals and synths. This music straight up blew me away. I have seen a number of openers recently, and this was by far the best. I kept waiting for the track that I would call “Okay.” That never happened. All the tracks they played were good, and catchy, and made me want to move.
On the flip side, the crowd was awful, there were very few people there, and being so vastly different from Voxtrot’s sound, I feel like the crowd didn’t know what to make of it all. They just kind of sat at the tables, leaving this huge open area in front of the stage. That didn’t waver Eat Sugar’s on stage energy, which compared to what I saw with Voxtrot just blew it out of the water. Aidin, Jim and Erin all were bouncing around on stage, and it was very contagious.
Eat Sugar is currently recording their first album, and their myspace page has two demo tracks and a video for the track “16.” When I talked with the band after the show and via email, they informed me that they would have a few tracks completely finished in the next week or so, and they would send them to me. I very much look forward to hearing these tracks. So expect a feature write up complete with a few tracks next week. Until then, check out their myspace page.
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FYI- There are NO guitars in Eat Sugar (bass yes, but guitars no)
makes ya crazy, doesn’t it?
Yeah, I realize now that I actually wrote electric guitar (instead of just Bass) making it sound as if there was… But yeah it was just Erin and Jim splitting time between the bass. I changed it to reflect that. Thanks for catching it
I heard the same stuff about their performance at SXSW, which gave me hope that this show would be better than the one they played in Covington last year. Monday’s show definitely falls into the “could have been worse” category. Then again, my disappointment in the new album may have affected my whole outlook on the show.