Tal Wilkenfeld brought her bass-forward songwriting to the Boulder Theater the night before she opens for The Who at the Pepsi Center.
Her start as a YouTube sensation as a very young bass guitar prodigy seems to be something she’s fending off now. Audio and video recording was strictly prohibited during her performance, but more telling than that was the absolute lack of showing off her immense talent on bass. Without the band being naturally led by a strong player, they rose around Wilkenfeld’s unremarkable vocals.
There’s nothing inherently bad about the songs; they just fall flat on an audience made up almost completely of bass-playing jam nerds. When she did add a bit of flare to her playing or paused for a longer solo, something about it didn’t fully supplant the awkward vibe that settled when she put on an acoustic guitar in the middle of the set. And that was right after she covered The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now” with significant enough technical issues to have to restart the song.
Lyons-based Arthur Lee Land opened and thoroughly entertained. His acoustic guitar got looped and effected into a variety of styles and instruments. His vocals also layered in smoothly to his tight looping. The “Arthur Lee Land” approach is playful and pings technology off of all corners of songwriting.
