Wolfmother
Wolfmother frontloaded its set with its best songs when it co-headlined the Fillmore Auditorium on April 18, but the strategy worked mostly to the Australian hard rock trio’s advantage.
Wolfmother’s a young band to be headlining such a large venue, and even though it was far from full, the band filled time – especially in the latter half of its set – with expansive, neo-psychedelic jams enhanced by rich lights that flooded the stage and recalled another era.
It fit the band’s reputation for free-form, Black Sabbath-styled metal, but the truth is, Wolfmother is a better band when it adheres to the pop-metal it made its name on – the pummeling “Dimension,” the frenetic “Apple Tree” or the lush “White Unicorn.”
“Woman” made them stars on FM radio and VH1, and that song at the Fillmore was the ideal mix of attainable metal and improvised indulgence. The best news: Wolfmother played a couple of new songs, and it sounds like their next record will be as solid as their heralded debut.
-Ricardo Baca
Aqueduct
Blending saccharine melodies and nerdy self-awareness is a tricky business, but David Terry and his band pulled it off at the Hi-Dive on Tuesday. Sporting songs from “Or Give Me Death,” the four-piece powered its dance-friendly songs with fat keyboard lines, guitars and an unerringly tight rhythm section.
Terry, a friendly stage presence in his blue and purple striped sweater, led the adoring but modestly sized crowd through songs that often felt like hip-hop anthems. “This is what we do and how we do it,” Terry barked at the outset with the authority of an MC. From new songs “Living a Lie” and the “Princess Bride”-inspired “As You Wish” to the more seasoned “Suggestion Box,” Aqueduct had the crowd dancing and chanting in equal measures. Most bands would do well to study this seamless joining of hip-hop and quirky indie pop.|John Wenzel
Klaxons
Drawing smartly from every subgenre of house music ever invented, England’s Klaxons have created a special blend of instrumental/electronic music.
It’s indie rock, but it’s double-dipped into a potent mixture of ’90s house music and sprinkled with shavings taken from that awkward but fun period between disco and new wave. When the band took on a packed Larimer Lounge on April 19, it was a full-on dance party – where you actually got reprimanded for not moving your feet and shaking your hips.
Their music climaxed – a term befitting their “new-rave” classification, a gift from the British music press – with the arrival of the unstoppable “Golden Skans.” The track, with all of its soaring “wooos” and intense drum backing, will move anything with a pulse. And it’s fair to say the Larimer Lounge hasn’t seen such a dance party since Electric 6’s heyday.|Ricardo Baca
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
With Ted Leo, it seems as if every song is a revelation – and perhaps that’s what make his shows so special.
When the Washington D.C.-based power pop hero took on the Gothic Theatre on Sunday with his three Pharmacists, he was in full-on audience-participation mode. The crowd was thin, but Leo kept up his end of an ongoing conversation with an exuberant, young audience member and also managed to answer the random one-off questions or song requests from others.
He’s so likable on record that it’s always dumbfounding to see that he’s even more affable in person – even when he’s sarcastically ridiculing audience members for their lack of moshing or their lack of creative heckling: “Ted Leo!”
The show had its obvious highlights – a singalong “Me and Mia,” a moshed-out “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” and a fine “Hearts of Oak” – and it was as solid as any you’ll see this year.
-Ricardo Baca
