There was a young crowd at the Echoplex on Tuesday night, mostly female, but also young guys and couples knowing all the lyrics of the songs played by the dynamic trio Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
The two frontmen Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott, equally sharing the instrumental and vocal parts of their dopamine-boosting tunes, sure know how to produce warm pop songs relying on vocal harmonies and electronics, wrapped into a playful bubble-gum ambiance. There was a lot of humor and crazy energy in their show, the two guys simply could not stop jumping around while playing with a few tricks like the giant J and R letters surrounded by multiple light bulbs, their multicolor fluorescent vests (that they only wore at the end of the show), the bubble machine on heavy rotation for the crowd’s biggest pleasure. ‘I love bubbles’, I heard several times, yeah, why is that? Why do these round transparent things make us happy when they fall on us in a wet kiss?
‘We end up playing more shows in LA than in any other city’, said the Detroit guys at the beginning of the show, ‘And it is the furthest city!’ They sure have their supporters, ‘And on a Tuesday!’… ‘How many of you are actors?’ they continued just before singing ‘An Ugly Person on a movie screen’… meaning, how many of you are out of job and have the luxury to late night-clubbing on a weekday?
Their OK-Go-style punchy dynamism and gimmicks (i.e. breaking in pieces a giant dollar bill above our heads while blinding us with flashing lights during ‘It’s a Corporate world’) was sometimes producing some experimental and weird melodies, a little difficult to follow with strange toyish sounds, but also little ear-worm gems like the very Beatles-que ‘Simple Girl’, or the power-chorus-turned into-summery-dance ‘Vocal Chords’, or the freaky-folkish ‘Skeletons’, or the honey ballad ‘If it wasn’t you’.
For many of the songs, vocal harmonies were definitely at the top of the sound, a priority they were playing with, making a lot of aaaah-aaaahs or oooh-ooohs as synchronized as their matching bowties, and it is effortlessly that they did their most Californian song, the beloved Beach Boys’ cover of ‘God Only Knows’
Alternating between guitar, synth, and even a drum in front of the stage, they carried the show with the same energy from start to finish, even playing a new song that sounded like some gentle-party music.
After their Gil Scott-Heron cover’s ‘We almost lost Detroit’ (a song they should definitively play with Fitz and the Tantrums), they came back for an encore with their matching-the-drums-fluorescent vests and played two songs, showing their late 80s-party side with Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’. Their restless dynamism and transforming-everything-in-anthem soaring vocals made the whole show as light and airy as these hundreds of soap bubbles floating above our heads.
Setlist
Morning Thought
An Ugly Person on a movie screen
When I open my eyes
God only knows (Beach Boys’ cover)
It’s a Corporate world
Don’t tell me (new song?)
Skeletons
If it wasn’t you…
Simple Girl
Vocal Chords
We almost lost Detroit
encore
Like a Prayer (Madonna’s cover)
Nothing but our love