Valentine’s Day can be a tricky time to try and entertain a crowd with pop-rock romance. L.A.’s , however, had no trouble wooing the roughly half-full on Monday night with their sweet and gummy noise. Bethany Consentino’s ebullient personality and unstoppable onstage energy is downright contagious, and won over a V-day crowd with no trouble from the first song.
It’s hard to avoid being taken in quickly and completely by the trio’s sound. Consentino’s vocals are powerful and smooth, and easily took over the top end of a thick mix of guitars and drums. The mix is different live than on record, though. Where on record she lives in a sumptuous Phil Spector-meets-“Psychocandy” mix, drowned in fuzz and reverb, the live mix really magnified her vocal prowess. She evoked a young Kim Deal singing tunes inspired by both Buddy Holly and the Crystals.
The lack of a bass in the group was largely unnoticed, mostly due to guitarist Bobb Bruno’s skillful double-dealing. Bruno played both the high end licks and rhythms and the low end grooves, and did it all easily. Couldn’t help seeing and hearing a young J. Mascis from stage left from time to time throughout the 80-minute set. And drummer Ali Koehler — previously of the Vivian Girls — followed both guitars with a flared drumming style, never missed a beat, and added some fancy bodily artwork between many of them.
San Diego’s played a fun set before Best Coast took over the place, full of three-and-a-half chord surf songs buried with reverb and fuzz. With faces painted in sloppy kabuki, the trio yelled out often funny lyrics over the loud mix of Nathan Williams’ guitar, Stephen Pope’s throbbing distortion and echo-soaked bass and Jacob Cooper’s simple, tight drumming. Between songs, Pope and Williams hollered in short, Hulk-speak sentences to the audience.
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Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s explorations at , and his giglist at .
Joe McCabe is a Denver photographer and a regular contributor to Reverb. Check out his .
