At the first song played by the sextet Run River North, I got the feeling these guys were here for the big game. By that I mean, success, contract with record labels, arena tours… They were totally unknown to me, but not to many people who had filled up the Amoeba store. Usually, when this happens, I have already heard about the band a little bit, but honestly who were they? Where did they come from? They didn’t come from very far away,… from LA suburb Glendale, and they were all Korean American and had already got a few giant breaks: they played on Jimmy Kimmel Live (after recording their first video inside a Honda), they sold out the legendary Troubadour just last Monday after building a local following – a very fervent one according to the reaction of the Amoeba crowd – and got an offer from Nettwerk, the Canada label that signed fun. and launched Coldplay’s career,… yes, no less!
Let’s just say that this band has done its homework, I could hear a bit of many successful indie and less indie bands in their songs. Six on stage, with two violins, keyboard, guitars, drums and bass, they had the folk harmonies of Fleet Foxes, while their songs had the cathartic nature of those of Mumford and Sons (or could it be the Lumineers? I always mix them up), with a bit of Arcade Fire or Kings of Leon in the mix, or even fun. because we were talking about them! Did you get the picture? A quiet acoustic start with hushed vocals announcing a bombastic development, lots of ooooohs, aaaaaahs, a large part saved for emotional strings from sizzling violins, a few abrupt stops, more instruments joining the mix to build these exploding, exuberant, uplifting, hooky choruses … Run River North are probably on route for big success or my name is Gwyneth Paltrow.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed their set, they played catchy tunes with some grand finales, quiet beginnings, and some tension going crescendo in the middle, so after a while the songs were a bit predictable, and sounded alike, but they kept a few mysteries and a song like ‘Beetle’ ended into enough chaos to keep me interested. These tunes were so efficient that the crowd asked for an encore, repeating ‘five more songs!’ and they came back to play ‘Fight to Keep’, a far more folky one, with some alt-country outbursts a la bright Eyes and the crowd went crazy. Of course you don’t expect an all Korean-American band embracing that way the current all-white folk anthem revival, but why shouldn’t they?
Run River North is a very young band, they just started in 2012 and at that time they were calling themselves ‘Monsters Calling Home’, but changed their moniker which was probably too close to ‘Monsters and Men’ or ‘Monsters of Folk’. They just released a self-titled album on February 25th which landed on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart at #3, and seeing how many t-shirts and merchandize they were selling after the show, they are living the dream.
More pictures of the show here
