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Great Scott seems to have started tonight's show in an uncharacteristically timely fashion. Which is a shame, since King & Country are playing their first show ever, and I only catch their last couple of songs. These are mellow, tuneful rock songs with a bit of a rootsy twang to them. But just a bit. The playing is solid, and I wonder what the rest of the set sounded like; I'll have to check them out again.
Hallelujah the Hills are also playing their first show ever tonight. They are a five-piece with a lot of instruments: in addition to the bassist, drummer, and singer/guitarist, they have a cellist who also plays guitar and a guitarist who also sings backup, triggers samples, and plays keyboard and melodica. They start out very atmospheric—as in, it takes me a while to figure out that they've actually started and are not just tuning—and the whole first song is pretty slow and mellow. But the second is faster, with an energetic shouted chorus, and the third is stellar, a hooky, sprawling indie-pop masterpiece with the band's name in the chorus. (There's some discussion of whether it's okay to have the band's name in the lyrics; personally, I like it when a band has a theme song.) His singing style is weird, almost veering into speak/singing at times, but the playing is uniformly excellent, the melodies are catchy, and the sound is richly textured, involved without being busy or fussy.
Devin Davis is a solo artist, sort of a neo-folkie with harmonica and strummed acoustic guitar. (Well, and theremin, but that's just one song. He plays along to a recorded guitar track, and he's really an amazing theremin player.) His singing voice covers a range from "undistinguished" to "regrettable," but his songs are pleasing. He has a looping machine that he uses on many songs to harmonize with himself on the choruses, to good effect.
