OK Go
It’s weird to see OK Go play live, as the band did Tuesday at the Fillmore Auditorium. It’s a tight pop band, but it also is one of the most music-video-oriented bands making music today. So to see the guys actually playing instruments is a trip because we’re used to seeing them carrying out complex choreographed dance/aerobic numbers in the backyard or on treadmills.
But they proved themselves Tuesday opening for Snow Patrol, and it’s clear why they’re popular with the kids. Their music is bright and upbeat. It’s music for head-nodding, and it’s easy to sing along to their songs, even if you’ve never heard them before. There’s not much substance there, and the songs are stylistically shallow, but it’s fun – and it’s also the ideal soundtrack for a music video. Aha.
The band has found its true calling.
Songs such as “Get Over It” and “Here It Goes Again” went over big with the young crowd. The Chicago band has the right energy for the hooky, good-times pop it specializes in, and it even works outside the confines of MTV2 and Fuse.
-Ricardo Baca
Bon Savants
When the Bon Savants laid into “What We Need” during their set Tuesday at the Hi-Dive, they wore their strengths on their sleeve. Singer Thom Moran knows his way around a Brit-pop melody, and that song stood out as a shining moment in a set that was, at times, unremarkable.
The song is packed with Moran’s musings – set against a bouncy bassline and flirtatious keys. The song doesn’t always go the direction you think it will, and that’s part of the draw of this little-known Boston band. They’re solid songwriters, and they’re obviously smart – although not pretentiously so. When he’s not fronting his new band, Moran is a rocket scientist at MIT, and the songs will often reference topics of science (and love, of course) that are close to his heart.
Listening to the Savants’ debut full- length album, “Post Rock Defends the Nation,” their talents are obvious. But on Tuesday the group’s energy was off. They were alive, and Moran would often walk into the crowd with his guitar leading the way, but something was askew.
Regardless, they’re good players, and their songs told an entertaining story of a new band on the road armed with little more than the instruments around their necks, a few butterflies in their stomachs and an arsenal of solid rock songs in their heads.
-Ricardo Baca
