Concert Review: Allison Weiss + Mitten + Donora @ Thunderbird Café / 01.14.2012

Catching up on weeks-old shows. Mitten put out a catchy and lovely EP last year called See You Bye. I really liked it and was kinda surprised by how much I did, and wrote that in this review here for DUL. I've managed to see Allison Weiss four or five times here in town over the last couple of years, and I saw that they were touring together this winter and stopping here at the Thunderbird, hooray! And they're playing with Donora, even better!

I emailed the ladies of Mitten to set up an interview a couple of days before the show, and had plans to meet up with them and AW for some pizza before the gig, but unfortunately they got delayed on the road. We ended up just meeting at the venue after soundcheck and right before they played. (That's their soundcheck in the photo on the left, with AW internetting and Hugh snapping photos.) I had a quick conversation with Joanna and Maia about their current tour and their plans for future recording. What struck me was how much god damn fun they were having. In the most pleasant way possible, I could hardly get a word in! They cracked jokes left and right, smiled constantly, jabbed at each other and told tour anecdotes, and were genuinely outgoing and bubbly the whole time. The best kind of interview, really, but darn hard to transcribe (especially with the background noise by the pool table there) so I'm working on that and it'll hopefully be done next week.

My friends and I sat at the table at the front of the balcony, which is an optimal viewpoint at the Thunderbird, I gotta say, but it kinda sucks for sound if there are lots of people at the bar up there. If people are respectful and pay attention, it is outstanding for sound, right up in the middle of the sonic spaces, but if everyone is really chatty, like this night … well, it can be really frustrating. I had trouble hearing banter, and some of the quieter moments of Mitten's music—which are some of the best parts of their music, really!—got a little blurred and almost drowned out. Fuckin' ay. Overall, they played great and seemed to have a good time, regardless, and there were a couple of folks up front dancing and singing along, so I'm glad for that. It's just too bad that our location wasn't the best and there was a big group of us so moving up to the front of the stage wasn't gonna work.

This trend kinda continued into Allison Weiss' set. She blasted through a bunch of new songs, and the usual old faves—"I Was An Island", "Fingers Crossed", "You + Me + Alcohol"—and her downtempo cover of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend", which is gorgeous. Having just seen her play in December at Point Park, there wasn't much new to talk about. She played well, was her usually friendly self on stage, and the crowd down at the stage level was really into it. Mitten came back onstage to play a song or two at the end, too; that was fun.

Donora came in and rocked the house, as usually. It became clear as the night went on that most people were there to see Donora and were kinda waiting through the first two sets to see them. That irked me a little. As much as I love local bands and am glad to see when they become increasingly popular, I don't like seeing this dynamic at shows where it's like you can completely forget about the fact that people are standing on stage playing songs for your entertainment and you're just talking to your friends like they don't exist. It's fine to not like bands and not want to pay attention, but just do it somewhere else. Go downstairs to the bar. Go outside. Play a game of tic tac toe. Whatever it is. It's just really annoying to everyone else trying to watch and listen when they have to fight through your idle chit-chat.

Concert Review / MOIP + 123 @ Brillobox

It had been a long while since I'd seen a proper Meeting of Important People rawk band show. It felt like a year or more, but it was really only like 6 months. Still, that's WAY too long to go without a rip-roarin' set of garage pop tunes, guitar flailing, fast-paced drums, and good ol' fashioned fun times.

I grabbed dinner downstairs at the Brillobox before the show. You have to try the seitan gyro. I think it's pretty new on the menu (I hadn't seen it before) and it was absolutely delicious. Perfectly spiced, nice texture, generously saucy. Yummo. I went upstairs a short while after The Whiskey Holler started their set. I'd only caught these dudes once before, at the Thunderbird back in September, and I was really surprised by how great they were that first time. I wasn't expecting them to be bad, not at all, but it was one of those really pleasant surprises where you don't know the band, have no expectations, and then they rock your socks off and you find yourself grinning halfway through because you know you've stumbled on greatness. Yeah, it was like that. This time around, the crowd was kinda chatty and the band was playing as an acoustic duo (or trio, perhaps?) so it didn't come across nearly as well as I remembered/had hoped. I still enjoyed their twangy rock tunes, but I wish everyone else was paying better attention. I suppose I should have gone up and stood closer but I didn't feel like navigating the already dense crowd. They play around town a lot, so I'll be sure to catch 'em again soon, and I recommend you do the same. In the meantime, dig this live recording from a Howlers set. It is fantastic. Also, check out this story they posted on their blog last month. Love the story-telling style, fellas.



Meeting of Important People got up next and did what they do best: everything. Josh announced that they'd essentially taken the entire fall season off from concert-playing and put together an entire new full-length album of material that they're very eager to share. Huzzah! They've slipped a couple of new songs into their repertoire over the last year or so, and I've wondered how those were coming along and whether they had any album plans. Now we know. Check out the Kickstarter campaign that they launched last week for more info about it; they want to do all the recording themselves, sans labels and PR and all that monkey business. More power to ya, boys. And readers, throw 'em a few bucks. You won't regret it when you hear what comes out of it all. As I was watching them play, I realized that I've written so many review of their shows, it's pointless to reiterate the fun and tunefulness they exude, so I went and did something I remember doing way back when I was just a fanboy, listening to their record on my iPod, seeing them for the first or second time: I copied down their setlist on my phone while they played. Yup. This is direct copy/paste from the document so you can see my silly notes, unedited.

britney lane
hanky church
(verba nets vs. ver baah nets)
leaving here
its alright to let the old folks go (with bullshit indie rock ending)
one o clock
big muscles
we gotta get outta this place
I know every street
innocents abound (guest shaker)
dead man
good for your bones, punk rawk
training song
leap the dips
boys
??? New song, for when you're higher than hell
nothings goin on
school (nirvana)


1,2,3 came up last and played a bunch of songs from New Heaven, and one new song from an upcoming thing they're working on. The crowd was really into it, although it seemed a little thinner than it had been earlier. I learned that the bassist used to be in Juliana Theory. There's a fun fact for ya. They played my favorite tune of theirs, "Riding Coach". That one always sounds good, and I'm really impressed with how well it comes across in person, too. It almost feels like a headphones song, but they nail it live, even Nic's falsetto. Great stuff. I noticed they had their own sound guy working the board, which I don't see too often from local bands, so they must be prepping him for a tour or something? Sounded pretty good, considering the usual Brillo crowd which, by the way, was waaaayyy worse during this set than usual. Nic actually called out a group of super chatty folks right in the front. "Hey, girl in the glasses, yeah, you, hey, you" … and she still didn't notice! Somebody standing behind her had to poke her drunk ass (not literally, she was just being a drunk ass) to get her attention and get her to shut up so they could play a quiet tune. Yowza. Meanwhile, some other really drunk girl kept "dancing" and stumbling around and falling onto the stage, and Josh's ride cymbal kept falling off the stand (the top notch was broken, I think) and a pink-haried lady in the front kept graciously going up to fix it when it tumbled (which happened at least four or five times). Overall, it was a kinda up-and-down set, logistics-wise, but the music sounded good to my ears, which is all that really matters, right?