What a crowd at Amoeba again! But this time I thought I would not be able to get in, the show was an early one because Local Natives had a sold-out show at the El Rey theater on the same Tuesday night, and I bet people had started to line up early in the afternoon… happy kids who can ditch school to be front row, sad teachers who have to stay at school till 5 pm! It has to be Local Natives time in Los Angeles: the band was performing between two shows and they had just played another sold-out show at the Henry Fonda a day before! Someone told me she hadn't been able to get a ticket months in advance, so these double dates were super hot tickets in town! Local Natives, I hardly know you, what exactly all these kids do know that I don’t?
They know about good music, there is no doubt about it,… that said, if I really enjoyed Local Natives’ set at Amoeba, I didn’t totally make sense of this overwhelming outpour of love and overflow of excitement. I understand the sweet and catchy melodies, the multi-voice harmonies, the soft-dynamic drumming, the slightly exotic rhythms, which sound as familiar as a trip to the beach, but I still have to listen to their two albums to understand why these natives – they are really from Silver Lake – are the darlings of the moment.
At Amoeba, I saw them from the back of the store, it was really packed to its maximum capacity, and their set was so short so that I had hardly the time to get used to their music. But they were interestingly and energetically moving while pushing their powerful harmonies, which has to be difficult and breath taking,
They played a few songs off their new album ‘Hummingbird’ which was just released the same day, but it was their old ones, such as ‘Wide Eyes’ and ‘Who knows who cares’ off their 2009 ‘Gorilla Manor’, which naturally got the biggest reactions from the crowd. Beside ‘Breakers’, some of these new ones actually sounded darker ('Colombia'), with crooning harmonies close to some Thom York-ish heights ('You and I'), and overall I didn’t really get the Talking Heads vibe sometimes mentioned in reviews. It was mostly about these voices, and these guys can really sing close-to-falsetto-high, these breezy atmospheres, sometimes almost upbeat, most of the time quite melancholic, and these soaring huge choruses flooding over drumbeats. If I had to choose only a few words to describe their music I would say it is a delicate (like a hummingbird?) and subtle soundscape hardly disturbed by a higher voice, a faster drum or a louder guitar. It draws from Fleet Foxes’ harmonies, Radiohead’s earliest emotional tricks and why not, Vampire Weekend’s vibrant and buoyant vibe, but probably more the idea than the sound of them.
A lot of people stayed outside the store which had reached its full capacity, but those who had bought ‘Hummingbird’ got the chance to meet the band for a signing. All of them probably told them how much their sensitive music has touched them while tweeting that their life was complete now that they have met Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, Ryan Hahn and Matt Frazier – honestly they are all frontmen. Me? I have to go back to listening to understand the gentle hysteria which invaded Amoeba.
setlist:
You and I
Breakers
Wide Eyes
Heavy feet
Colombia
Who knows Who Cares
