Art Brut & Surfer Blood @ Triple Rock Social Club
Watching the band Surfer Blood Monday night at the Triple Rock Social Club brought to mind the phrase “Childlike Enthusiasm,” which isn’t surprising since the band look like a group of kids. Luckily for the small crowd gathered for their set, the group showed a tight and exciting sound that really highlighted the great songs on their debut album Astro Coast. The five-piece band played a blistering 35 minute set that showed why the young band has such a bright future.
Starting off with early set highlights “Floating Vibes,” “Swim,” and “Harmonix,” the group was quick to show that their ’90s rock revivalist sound would translate well into the live setting. Lead singer John Paul Pitts was cheeky and playful throughout the set, his exploits culminating with him crowd surfing while playing guitar near the end of the set, although he barely made it when a pair of tweens in the front row didn’t realize he wanted to be caught when he fell backwards off the stage.
The duel guitar sound of Pitt and Thomas Fekete was sharp and bright during the set and really drove the band’s sound. Bassist Brian Black and drummer Tyler Schwartz kept the rhythm moving forward and helped propel the band’s shifting sounds as they jumped between various genres. Auxiliary percussionist/keyboard played Marcos Marchesani kept the energy high and really added in a lot of valuable intangibles to the mix. The band played most of the non instrumental tracks from their record and not one was a dud. Many of the people at the show were clearly there to see Art Brut, but it was obvious Surfer Blood had won over many converts by the end of their set. With their eclectic sounds, boyish charm and amazing batch of songs, it was hard not to root for these guys. I hope they will be making a return trip to Minneapolis soon and I expect that the crowd will be bigger and much more familiar with them by that time.
Unfortunately Art Brut didn’t wow me nearly as much. For a band whose first album I really liked, their shtick has worn a little thin and exposed a band that’s seemingly repeating the same joke over and over. While they were entertaining in the short term, I had about enough after about four songs and decided to call it a night and not let a lackluster Art Brut set ruin the great show Surfer Blood had put on in their opening slot.
I guess I’ve never completely gotten into Art Brut. First album was trillish, but I lost interest after that.
Did think of this though when I was reading the review: do you think that if you were from England, that you might be more inclined to get behind these guys & their shtick as you’ve done with the Hold Steady and theirs?
Or is it apples and oranges? I look at ‘em both as drunk-rock, and haven’t given either much attention. Consider me clueless on this one.
To me, comparing Art Brut and Hold Steady is like saying Radiohead and Coldplay do the same thing.
In my opinion, the worst song Hold Steady ever wrote is better than the best song Art Brut has ever written, and that is coming from someone who did like Art Brut at one point.
Well, there must be some similarities between the two bands (and a mutual respect) since Art Brut opened for Hold Steady at the State Theater a few years back. Both their lead ‘singers’ technically can’t sing, and there are a lot of cultural references/locales/funny bits that are layered throughout both band’s lyrics that their audiences attach to-so I think Chris is right, in a way, if more of Art Brut’s references were directed at you, you perhaps might identify with them a bit more-Like knowing where Penetration Park and City Center are only adds to our enjoyment of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend.”
I too liked Art Brut’s first record, and have faded on them since, but I’ve heard from many people that their set was fantastic and a lot of fun.
I can say for sure that I don’t like Hold Steady because they talk about Minneapolis (it is an added bonus, but they could be talking about Atlanta for all I care). I find it laughable that the fact that the have conversations styles of singing would be the way to compare the two bands (would you lump the Streets in there too?). Eddie doesn’t talk about a lot of localized stuff (the latest album has a song called “The Replacements†and the first album talked about Morrissey and forming a band) and has always seemed to me to be much more cheeky and trying to be ironic than Craig Finn. Others may disagree, but I always have found Craig Finn funny in a way that doesn’t seem as forced or so self referential as Argos. In the same way that the Mountain Goats will make you laugh or bring a smile to your face with a witty phrase, the Hold Steady seem to write songs that are clearly written with lots of thought and attention. The kind of songs that would stand up if someone played them on an acoustic guitar. “Formed a Band” or the new DC Comics song the Current can’t stop playing? Funny, but not something that is going to stand the test of time in my opinion.
I don’t doubt that some people enjoyed the set. It was definitely “entertaining” to a certain extent and fans of the band probably would say that it was fantastic to see them in a smaller venue. It was fun, but so were Electric Six at one point, you know? They are a good band, but their act has grown old for me and once the funniness has worn off, I think the band comes across as pretty thin and one dimensional.
You leave Mike Skinner out of this, mister.
So you think if Craig were talking about streets or locations in a town you’ve never been in before as opposed to places where you’ve actually hung out, you’d still identify with them as strongly? I just feel the songs hit home a bit more for me since they are about the Twin Cities.
I didn’t claim that the reason you like the Hold Steady is because they talk about Minneapolis, I just suggested it adds to our enjoyment of the band. At least it does for me.
And yeah, in an era where 99% of lead singers actually sing (most of them not very well), comparing Eddie and Craig (and their bands) because of their quirky conversational delivery doesn’t really seem all that far fetched.
It does add to the enjoyment, no doubt, but even if they sang about streets in other cities, I would still like them way more than Art Brut and consider them functinoing on a whole different level. A lot of my favorite songs by Holdy Steady/Lifter Puller barley mention MPLS at all (songs like “Southtown Girls” overdue it and are my least fav Hold Steady tracks).
Are you saying you would like Hold Steady less if they were, in fact, a New York band that sang about NYC?
Back to the question Chris posed: I guess maybe my man crush on the Hold Steady gives me blinders that make me hear them differently, but I put Craig Finn’s singing/lyrics in a whole different ballpark than Eddie Argos. I have never put particular emphasis on whether a singer has a “good,†which in an era of Pro Tools easy to create, and look more at lyrics and delivery. I think that comparing Argos and Finn is apples and oranges. The Holy Steady to me are one of the best bands of this decade. Art Brut are funny and can be entertaining, but I think will ultimately be forgotten.
ART BRUT TOP OF THE POPS!!!!!!!