CONCERT REVIEW: Clientele and Vetiver @ Johnny Brenda's

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CONCERT REVIEW: Clientele and Vetiver @ Johnny Brenda's

POSTED: Thursday, February 25, 2010, 7:53 PM

Filed Under: Music Show

Love was in the air last Monday at Johnny Brenda's: glasses-chap with glasses-lass, flannel-fellow and flannel-filly, Foghat-guy with Linda Rondstadt-gal. The fine line between accidental and perfectly-calculated irony treaded so loudly by the crowd left the mid-tempo sounds of Vetiver a welcome break from an otherwise impossibly dissonant atmosphere.

Opening their set with"Rolling Sea," off 2008's Tight Knit, silenced the room at the get-go. The song ebbed and flowed between singer Andy Cabic's softly strummed acoustic guitar, splashing cymbals and the rhythmic swell of reverb rippling across a vast sea of people creeping ever closer to the stage. But, having adopted the song as my own personal anthem for most of my senior year in college, I hold it in unreasonably high regards, and felt like there was some element missing from its delivery. The sound was good, but not great, and the dynamic and intimate quality that is the group's signature was hard to appreciate through the din of a packed house. Vetiver proved their potential in the studio, but besides the notable exceptions of "Rolling Sea" and "Miles Apart," the set had few tracks as engaging and immersive as the band can get.

Clientele snuck on stage fairly quickly, and before I knew it I was a younger version of myself and "Since K Got Over Me" was ringing in my ears once more. Having made a name for themselves for breathy vocals, booming reverb and classically tasteful guitarwork, the band used their strengths to bind together a great collection of songs, both old and new. Their whirlwind sound of lovelorn whimsy is best appreciated when springing from wall to wall, pulling the rug out from under its audience's feet and bundling them up in a warm fuzzy blanket of sonic bliss, and while at times dynamically stagnant, the ethereal qualities of the band shined. Hardly pausing between songs, they steadily gained momentum throughout their hour-long set and left us to face the hard, cruel reality of the drizzly cold, wet asphalt and steel subway trains rumbling nearby much too soon.

Clientele Set:

Since K Got Over Me
Here Comes the Phantom
I Wonder Who We Are
Jennifer and Julia
We Could Walk Together
Bonfires on the Heath
Never Anyone But You
Somebody Changed
Graven Wood
Reflections after Jane
My Own Face inside the Trees
Harvest Time
Lamplight
The Garden at Night

Encore:

I Know I Will See Your Face
Rain

ian

Posted 2010-03-01 03:11:03

Adjective Overload!

Posted by Tom Tiballi @ 7:53 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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