Nothing beats going to a show where you know all the bands are going to deliver. Such was the case the other night at Sound Academy. It was a bill that brought together Aussie band An Horse, Kentucky band Cage The Elephant and Los Angeles headliners Silversun Pickups.
This was a highly anticipated event by many including me. I had been waiting a while to see Silversun pickups having missed their set at Virgin Festival last year. Sound Academy was packed about as far as I've ever seen it and the band had played a great acoustic set on The Edge 102 morning show to add to the anticipation.
Silversun pickups were in town supporting their latest release "Swoon". And started the set off with "Growing Old Is Getting Old" which mirrored the set starting slow and building up to an explosive end. Silversun Pickups have a distinctive sound which is much compared to The Smashing Pumpkins. Brian Auberts vocals are distinct and accompanied by hard driving baselines, and guitar reverb and distortion. The set included "Well Thought Out Twinkles", "Sort Of",and "Catch and Release" leading up to the songs that the crowd were really hungry for "Panic Switch" and "Lazy Eye". It was a wickedly tight set that just left you wanting more.
Cage The Elephant:
Cage the Elephant hail from Bowling Green Kentucky a point lead singer Matt Shultz made sure to let as know a few times during their set. The band have been around since about 2005 and have received a lot of attention following the release of their hit single "Ain't No Rest For the Wicked". Having heard and thoroughly enjoyed the album "Cage The Elephant" I knew they would be fun to watch. I'd also seen some photos from other shows where Matt has headed out into the crowd so I thought it should be a fun set. What I didn't expect was to be blown away. Matt displayed a boundless youthful energy as he spent half his time bouncing around on stage while spending the other half out in the pit up close to the crowd. Behind him was the rest of the band Brad Shultz (guitar), Lincoln Parish (lead guitar), Daniel Tichenor (bass), and Jared Champion on drums providing a good hard punch of rock n roll to match Matt's energy. The band played a good hard set that included their hit single and ended with "Saber Tooth Tiger" and Matt out surfing the crowd. They are a lot of fun to watch and should keep the Silversun Pickups on their toes on this tour.
An Horse:
No photos unfortunately.
An Horse opened up the show. I'm betting not many people at Sound Academy had even heard of the Aussies before. They were actually a band I was hoping to see and unfortunately missed out on at NXNE. With every song in their set they began to win the crowd over. The highlight of their set was the single "Camp Out" which incidentally they played on Letterman a few weeks back. Solid set looking forward to seeing them the next time they are in town.
