Clap Your Hands Say Yeah wasted no time getting to the sugary goodness of its dancey pop set at the Bluebird on Tuesday – laying into a blindingly fun 1-2 combination of “Is This Love” and “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” early on. And while the show lagged about 45 minutes in, the group left its mark with a new track that hinted, at least, to this buzz band’s future endeavors.
With “Satan Said Dance,” one of the few songs played that’s not on the New Yorkers’ eponymous debut, CYHSY showed an alternate side to its infectious pop. The strong-arming guitar wasn’t as wimpy as the band’s usual methodical rhythms, and in general, it was a bolder statement than most of the group’s small catalog.
Was it heavy? No, but it certainly rocked harder than “Over and Over Again” – which is key because this is a band in need of a wider spectrum of sound and timbre. | Ricardo Baca
The Grates
Hype fatigue is common among music-lovers these days, usually gotten from paying too close attention to bands with a mayfly life span. In that sense, one would be forgiven for ignoring The Grates, another energetic indie trio that eschews bass guitar. One would be missing out, however, on their memorable, sugar-spiked punk nuggets, as the band proved at its Saturday Hi-Dive set opening for We Are Scientists.
Lead singer Patience Hodgson, a pencil-thin pixie who makes Speedy Gonzalez look calm, bounced her away around the stage during songs such as “Message” and (appropriately) “Trampoline,” babbling after each number. Her voice, reminiscent of Karen O, might have sounded more stable if not for her constant gyrations, but it fit the playful melodies perfectly.
Hodgson stopped early to pull out her fake teeth, showing them proudly to the audience and evincing a groan or two. Guitarist John Patterson smiled coyly, letting us know it wasn’t the first time. | John Wenzel
Two Gallants, Pink Mountaintops
Anyone who ever wondered what a young Bob Dylan, young Jakob Dylan double-bill might look like got an odd little taste Friday at the Two Gallants-Pink Mountaintops show at the Hi-Dive.
2G’s raspy-voiced Adam Stephens of San Francisco looked scarily like Woven Hand brimstoner David Eugene Edwards and sounded eerily like papa Dylan (circa age 24) with his low-fi guitar and harmonica act. Then the Jakob-sounding Stephen McBean introduced the Pink Mountaintops, an accessible and fun side project of Vancouver, British Columbia’s more dense and psychedelic Black Mountain. But what started as a bubble-blowing, pop liberation party devolved too quickly into the kind of sleepy, stoner jam session that marks any Black Mountain set. | John Moore
Ben Harper
Ben Harper treated a tightly packed audience Sunday to an acoustic, folk-soul set thick with tracks from his new CD, “Both Sides of the Gun.” He was making his fifth appearance on “etown,” the live radio show taped at the Boulder Theater. For Harper, the political has always been personal. But after speaking about the impact of fatherhood and family on his songwriting, it seemed this jam-scene icon’s music has taken a turn toward ever more serious subjects. The gentle introspection of “Morning Yearning,” was a highlight, though he had to play it twice due to recording problems.
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals return to Boulder tonight and Saturday for sold-out shows at the Fox Theatre. Tickets are so hot they being resold on eBay for several hundred dollars more than face value. | Elana Ashanti Jefferson
