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Tonight is Night One of The New England Pop Music Festival. This means a fun lineup, absurdly early start time, and free pizza! The start time is so absurdly early because six bands are playing, and they all get full sets. Awesome in principle, but I've already missed three bands by the time I get out of work. I have not, however, missed the pizza, and I am much mollified. Also, I have arrived in time to see The Montgomerys, who make me very happy. As promised, they are a pop band, with a strong focus on catchy, crafted songs. Best of all are their lyrics, which are full of incredibly clever rhymes, and the astounding fact that I can mostly tell what he's singing. This is down to the fact that the arrangements are pretty spare, and stay out of the way of the songs. It's not that they can't get fancy with the instruments—there's a great wah-funk breakdown in one song that comes out of nowhere and makes me laugh—but they have the musical sense to rein themselves in when it's appropriate. Peter, their singer/songwriter and eponymous Montgomery, seems oddly disaffected during their set, going so far as to cut off what was to have been their last song after one verse, saying "I'm not really committed to this one," and substitute a different song. But the contrast between a grumpy demeanor and sweet, heartfelt songs is also entertaining.
Scamper start with a brand new song, written by Keith for his new son. So obviously, it's pretty sweet and heartfelt also. I feel that it's not quite there yet as a Scamper song, though; the greatness of their material is in its polish and sparkle, and this song needs a little more sparkle. I think the song is actually about 20% faster than this, and they just haven't realized it yet. The rest of their set has that pop transcendence that I look for in them. My one quibble is that the drummer actually makes mistakes. Not many: maybe three or four audible errors in a 45 minute set. It's a good performance. It's just that he's usually perfect, so any error really stands out. (I wonder if the free beer for the bands, and the fact that he's been here for 5 hours at this point, have anything to do with it.) So not the best Scamper set ever, but still a good time. Call it a 'B'.
Heavy Stud apparently haven't played a show since February. So it's not surprising if they're a little rusty. Besides which, perfect and polished is not really what they do, and tonight they're struggling with a number of handicaps. There's a persistent and intrusive feedback problem that no one can seem to solve, which lasts through their entire set, and it really seems to throw them. So they don't have quite the energy and ferocity that they've had before. Their music is very simple and straightforward, so without that energy I'm a little underwhelmed. (But I'm also really tired.)
