Live: Sore Eros and Super Vacations

When: 2/7 (actually the wee hours of 2/8)
Where: Market Hotel

In yet another chapter of last weekend's epic tale, "Radio Flyer Attempts To See A Show By Wavves And Repeatedly Fails," I caught half of the after-midnight show Market Hotel, featuring two bands I had never heard of before (and not featuring Wavves, at least not before I lost consciousness around 4 AM).

Super Vacations - Super Vacations, the first band of the show, took the stage close to 2 AM and played pretty fast, loud, borderline-punk songs. I'm sorry to say that for a really talented group of musicians, these guys make a pretty poor band. The guitarists especially showed potential - their parts were interesting, and they totally nailed them. However, the drums and rhythms were boring at best, and the vocals added exactly nothing to the music. Sung through a instrument mic (apparently the band's choice since the subsequent bands used a standard dynamic vocal mic), the vocals had no melody or beauty but weren't energenic enough to approach punk either. They seemed irrelevant to the songwriting and only detracted from the mood.

Writing off the vocals and rhythm section as a loss, I wondered if the guitarists, paired with another set of musicians, would make a good band. And even there, I was forced to answer "no." Despite the individuals' talents, the parts simply did not compliment each other in any way, or come together for some larger purpose. The whole was far less than the sum of its parts and while it was not at all a painful listen, it was certainly something of a waste of time.

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Sore Eros - And now for something completely different. A poorly named band (it's a palendrome, woah), Sore Eros is highly experimental ambient noise-folk, and my reaction was very mixed. The performance itself was interesting, with the band's members lurking in the shadows, mimicking the dark depths of the music. However, one member sat on the floor (at least I think it was a member, I couldn't see if he was playing anything) and that really irked me. Something about bands where members sit on the floor, it just seems too casual and presumptious, almost disrespectful and certainly awkward.

In terms of music, the band had some great moments of noise. One member, if I'm not much mistaken, was playing a theramin, which marks the first time I've seen a performance on the instrument. My instinct is to cry "gimmick" but honestly, the sound was just right for the music. It certainly wasn't played masterfully - that's a near impossibility - but it didn't need to play precise notes and rhythms to fill its purpose in the music - adding ghostly tension to the sounds.

All in all, the band didn't add up to what it should have. The sound was unrefined and unedited, with good ideas tossed in willy-nilly with weaker ones. I think the band could probably benefit from taking a step back and really hearing their music from the outside - they were probably following the feel of it, but what feels right to play doesn't always sound interesting to the audience. Nevertheless, I'll say these guys have potential, and if their sound matures, they could turn out to be a pretty interesting bunch.

MySpace