Typhoon at Brighton Music Hall (9/29)
17 Oct 2013It’s taken me a few weeks to sort out what I wanted to say about seeing Typhoon live for the first time. They put out my favorite song of 2011, and I think White Lighter is the current favorite to be my top album of the year, with three or four songs on it that I might like better than anything else I’ve heard this year. But, I’d never seen them live (which is somewhat rare for bands I really enjoy). They’d never really toured the East Coast.
Radiation City opened for them, and it was one of those great concert moments where you get exposed to a really good band that you’ve never heard of, and you begin to realize “Hey, this crowd is pretty cool right now. Into the music, not much talking, no one pushing to the front.”[1] I think most people who were there were as excited as I was to be there, and people were, sort of, on their best behavior.
Radiation City played a really great set of synth-backed pop with lots of harmonies—right up my alley—but a bit slower than you might expect. Worth checking out on Spotify.
Then Typhoon came out. And from song one, they just owned it. Eleven band members, strings, horns, multiple drummers, and vocals and lyrics that just sort of wring emotions out of you.
It was this big, cathartic release. A bunch of people waiting to see a band, the band coming out and being better than anyone probably expected, and the crowd just reacting with sheer joy. That joy was clear to the band, who acknowledged the crowd’s boisterous response more than once, giving the old “you’re the best crowd we’ve ever played in front of” spiel, but saying it like they meant it, which would just make the crowd react even more.
I know, I know. This all sounds ridiculous. But, sometimes you talk to people who really love Phish (or, if they’re a bit older, the Grateful Dead; it’s always a jam band), and they tell you about these shows where everything happened a certain way, and the lights were just right, and the crowd was just right, and the music segued just right.
That’s what this show felt like. Everything kind of all came together—a band firing on all cylinders, a crowd that had waited years to see the band—and it lead to a really, really wonderful show.
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Complete aside about concert crowds. They mostly suck. Obviously, it depends on the bands you see, but, if you’re seeing a band that attracts a college audience, it’s going to suck. College kids are college kids, and I now feel horribly old saying this, but they’re shitheads. I mean, we all were in college. But, when you go to a show for a band like Ra Ra Riot, you don’t expect to see bros jumping up on the stage and then stage diving. Or when seeing Clap Your Heads Say Yeah, you don’t expect to spend the entire show with a bunch of college hipsters pushing their way to the front to dance spastically because they “love the band.” We’re all there for the band, dipshit.
Nada Surf attracts really great crowds that make the experience that much better. When I saw The Presidents of the USA recently, that was a great crowd full of people who loved the band. The crowd for Typhoon was one of best crowds I’ve experienced. Dancing and clapping for the right songs; getting quiet for the places that needed to be quiet.