On Tuesday night, Family of the Year was celebrating the release of their new self-titled album on Nettwerk Records, with a live acoustic set at Amoeba… if you have never heard of the quartet, there are a lot of chances you have heard some of their songs, as many of them have been featured in various commercials, TV shows (Weeds, Girls), and movies… In particular their song ‘Hero’ was used in the critically acclaimed movie ‘Boyhood’ by Richard Linklater. How could you escape this one? Even if you haven’t seen ‘Boyhood’, you probably caught the trailer also featuring the song, and the single peaked at #12 on the Billboard Alternative songs Chart, and #1 on the Triple A Top 30 Radio Chart and Top 15 at Alternative Radio!
The Quartet precisely started with a beautiful rendition of this melancholic song, during a very acoustic (and too short) set, filled with vocal harmonies and delicate guitar chords. I had seen them before, during a more rocking show with Christina Schroeter on keyboard and Sebastian Keefe on drums, but this time there were only Joseph Keefe and James Buckey’s guitars and all their voices united, their three-or-four-part harmonies filling up their heartfelt folk, that you could at time be qualified of old-school. Each song had a sort 70’s vibe and if Joseph Keefe was the lead singer, the ensemble of their subtle backup harmonies, not trying to get too close to the mic, was producing an all-harmony effect, that was so frequent when the music was all about pure voices mixed with delicate guitars. Each song sounded familiar and catchy, showing what fantastic sense of melody they had, harmonizing during the tender chords of ‘Carry Me’, a bit like Simon & Garfunkel in ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’
They looked so relax and laid back, joking around and working without a setlist, deciding of the song they wanted to play as it went, declaring Amoeba to be their ‘church’, before playing their catchy and new song ‘Make You Mine’…. They announced a show at the Troubadour for November 28th, just in time for Thanksgiving weekend, and they took me by surprise, before I realize it, their set was over after they had barely played 30 minutes. But it ended with a very happy-hippie tune and an infectious liveliness… It may have been a short performance, but it was one featuring an impressive number of memorable and emotional tunes and a dynamic young band able to write successful songs with a rare easiness.
