Ack Phhht!

I’d been looking forward to this show for a while, because I’m a big Longwave fan, and I really enjoyed seeing them play at Cafe du Nord a few years back.  And again, they played a great set, although the band themselves seemed a bit less chatty and more reserved this time around.  Tour fatigue, maybe?

Anyway, they still rocked.  Their new album, Secrets Are Sinister, sees the band playing faster, more propulsive songs than usual, and their live set followed suit, driven particularly by Morgan King’s bass playing.  Steve Schlitz continues to be an arresting frontman, and it was good to see him jump up and down a bit more to the faster material.

That said, it was still Longwave, which meant lots of droning walls of guitar.  It’s always a big question with shoegaze-y bands as to whether or not four guys and their effects pedals can successfully recreate their dense studio tracks, but Longwave largely pulled it off.  Particularly impressive was “Daysleeper”, a feedback-laden instrumental off their second album,  which they recreated brilliantly.  Not everything worked quite as well — the noise freakout at the end of “Shining Hours”, for example, didn’t quite achieve the level of cathartic release that it does on the recording — but all-in-all, they sounded great.

The setlist was largely skewed towards their new album, but several songs off their earlier releases made it in as well, particularly from The Strangest Things, the aforementioned second album.  Not everything that I wanted to hear made it in, but most of it did, and I left satisfied.  It was a great set, and I hope I don’t have to wait three more years to see them again.

Although there were supposed to be two openers, Eulogies didn’t play because of illness.  The other band, local indie poppers Scrabbel, started their set with a moody, atmospheric piece dominated by cello and slide guitar, hinting at a somnolent, Mazzie Star-like set.  The rest of their set, though, was jangly guitar pop, very catchy and enjoyable.  I particularly liked the songs where band leaders Dan Lee and Becky Barron shared vocals.  While the playing was professional and accomplished, their dual vocals had a very likeable akwardness to them that added considerable personality and charm to the songs.  I’m going to try to pick up one of their records.