Is it possible that Nada Surf has existed since 1992 and that I had never seen them live? In this ever-changing world of experimental music, electronica and other dubstep, this is one of these bands that has continued to survive without changing its sound much, while producing loads of catchy strummed-guitar songs.
Nada Surf was doing an in-store performance at Amoeba on Monday, and they did it acoustically, with guitars and bass played by frontman Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca and recent addition, Doug Gillard (whom Caws introduced as someone he has admired for a long time), as well as the light drumming of Ira Elliot, who was not even using a drum set.
The songs were light and fluid, carried by Caws’ gentle, clear and tuneful voice; it was actually very nice to perfectly hear all the lyrics, not buried in loud music for once.
Before the show had started, I saw Matthew Caws on the side of the stage, lipsynching the lyrics of The Clash’s song played in the store, and starting from this, he appeared like a very friendly guy, you would want to hang around with. At ease on stage, he was frequently talking to the crowd, just to make this necessary and casual connection.
Nada Surf was here to promote their last album, ‘The Stars are indifferent to astronomy’, just released last week in the US, and they started right away with the two songs opening the album, ‘Clear Eye Clouded Mind’ and ‘Waiting For Something’, delivering their pleasant power-pop, fueled by a fluid energy, and revealing right away a few hooks, not totally surprising for Nada Surf.
The set was lively, emphasizing on harmonies, alternating between new songs and old songs like ‘Happy Kid’ from their 2003 ‘Let Go’ album, or ‘Always love’ from their 2005 ‘The Weight Is a Gift’ album, or even ‘See these bones’ from their 2008 ‘Lucky’ album.
Among the new songs, ‘When I was young’ was much calmer than the other ones, diffusing first a melancholic sound with a quiet acoustic guitar, then breaking big with rushing guitars and the power chorus ‘When I was young, I didn’t know if I was better off asleep or up/Now I’ve grown up, I wonder what was that world I was dreaming of’.
Matthew Caws announced that a video for this song has just been released; as I said he and the other members of the bands were very relaxed, sipping their glasses of vine between the songs, ‘We are in the church of rock, drinking Jesus Juice’ said Daniel Lorca, joking about the place.
With song titles like ‘The Future’, ‘When I was young’, the new album seems to sometimes focus on nostalgia. But what is the most important is that ‘It's never too late for teenage dreams’ as Caws sings in ‘Teenage Dreams’, or even for kid dreams, as they started to serenade a short song with lyrics like ‘I am just a kid, one day I’ll be bigger,…miam miam’ to a bunch of cute kids standing at a corner of the stage.
They closed their set with ‘Looking Through’, a dynamic foot-tapping tune, which sounded like a happy number, like most of their songs actually. I read that the album's title ‘The Stars are indifferent to astronomy’, comes from a favorite saying of Caws’ father, a philosophy professor, but one thing is sure, Nada Surf’s music seems indifferent to the passing of time.
Setlist:
Clear Eye Clouded Mind
Waiting For Something
Happy Kid
Whose authority
Weightless
Teenage Dreams
The Future
When I was young
See these bones
Always love
Looking Through