Palomar Show Report

The Forms

According to the Mercury Lounge’s web site, the show was scheduled to start at 7:30, with bands going on every hour on the half hour. Four bands is a lot to suffer through, especially on a weeknight, so we decided to skip The Forms. We got to the club around 8:00 after a leisurely Ukrainian dinner, only to find that the whole schedule had been pushed back by thirty minutes. So we got to see The Forms.

In doing some research after the show, I went to The Form’s web site. There might be some excuses for how terribly they played. On the web site, the band appears to be a trio. On stage, however, there were four guys. It looks like the bassist and second guitarist are new, and that the old bassist is gone. Or maybe he was playing the second guitar. I don’t know, and I don’t really care.

In the cab on the way home, Edie and I used the word “professional” a lot, thinking about how the term related to all four bands. The Forms have a long way to go before they can reasonably be called professional. The main problem was with the aforementioned new guys in the band. The drummer (one Acquaman) spent the entire show telling them what they were doing wrong. “You were sharp on that whole song,” I heard him say to the bassist. At one point this chiding lead to literally two or three minutes of tuning by the second guitarist. The show came to a grinding halt for two to three minutes so this guy could tune his guitar! Excessive tuning is a huge pet peeve of mine. If you’re no good, tuning isn’t going to help.

The other thing that was odd was that the drummer had to count off in the middle of songs whenever the tempo changed or whenever there was a stop in the music. I appreciate that he was working really hard to hold the band together, but it indicated a real lack of rehearsal. Again, this could be because there were a few new members. I’m willing to give The Forms a second chance, but this show was just an under rehearsed mess.

The Hold Steady

Contrast that, if you will, with The Hold Steady. The Hold Steady is the reason I went to the show. Their frontman, Craig Finn, used to lead a Minneapolis band called Lifter Puller. I’ve had their last album, Fiestas and Fiascos for a while, but I’ve never been able to fully get into it. Enough good people have told me enough good things about it, though, that I keep listening to it, hoping to find what I’ve been missing. Seeing Craig Finn live was exactly what I had been missing.

Finn looks like someone I would work with, and I’m a programmer in the IT department of a large investment bank. He’s short, and was wearing kakhi pants and a blue button down shirt. He was playing a yellow Fender Telecaster, which added to his unassuming presence. His microphone was a few inches below his mouth, and he sang like a man posessed. When he wasn’t playing guitar, he’d grab the mike and deliver his lyrics hunched over and gesturing at the audience like a demonic preacher. The songs were thematically similar to Lifter Puller songs; Finn sang about life in the gutter, which usually involved too much drugs. It was music with a dark side, and it was completely entrancing. As the show progressed, sweat was pouring off of Finn’s face, and I didn’t see him wipe it off once.

The rest of the band did the material justice. They were an extremely tight combo. They started together, they stopped together. They grooved together like a well-oiled rock and roll machine. It was truly a sight to behold. I feel fortunate to live in the same town as these guys, and look forward to seeing them play out more in the future.

The Oranges Band

The show was ostensibly a record release party for The Oranges Band, a five piece band (bass, drums, and three guitars) from Baltimore. The Oranges Band was okay, but nothing outstanding. They tried to get the audience more fired up by calling them “lame”, but that strategy backfired. A few songs after mentioning that their new record was on Lookout Records, the singer asked, “So, have you guys ever heard of Lookout Records?” I didn’t know if he was insecure, or wanted us to be impressed, or both. In any case, this wasn’t quite the pop-punk that I normally associate with Lookout. They sounded more like Beulah’s less talented little brother. It was okay.

“Palomar”

Originally, I had planned on leaving after The Hold Steady. The show was, after all, on a weeknight, and my lameness in terms of weeknight concerts is well documented. This was before I downloaded the mp3’s that Palomar has on their web site. I like all sorts of music, but there are a few things a pop band can put in their songs will immediately make me fall in love with them. These are a few:

As far as those criteria go, Palomar hit the ball out of the park. The songs were fast but neat. The singing was spot on, the energy was high.

The only problem I had with the show was something that I would again characterize as a lack of professionalism. There were a bunch of people in front of the stage who obviously knew the band. I’m all for having your friends come out to the show, but the bassist was clearly distracted by their presence. She would make faces at them, and missed the start of one of the songs. Every time she paid attention to them it alienated her a little more from the rest of the audience. I didn’t feel like she was giving the show her all.

That quibble aside, I really enjoyed Palomar. It was odd; the room was almost full for The Oranges Band but emptied halfway before Palomar started. Which is too bad. Musically, Palomar is comparable to The New Pornographers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they soon were as popular. Catch them while you can.

As always, corrections, criticism, comments welcomed at mpd@mattereaterlad.com.