In these times when Wayne Coyne is hanging aroundwith Yoko Ono, it was quite natural I would end up seeing a band that would immediately remind me Lennon and the Flaming Lips at the same time.
The Florida duo Sunbears performed in the Origami Vinyl loft on Sunday evening, and even though they played acoustically with just a guitar and a tambourine, the slow-moving and echoing delivery of the vocals on ‘Together Forever’ had a Lennon thing going on, while the psyche-pop of ‘You Will Live Forever’, or ‘They think they’re sooo philosophical’ had undoubtedly this potential to go overboard just like a Lips’ song, with some Sgt. Pepper’s moments.
But I would not pretend to say I have totally figured out their music and have put them in these little groovy-pop-songs-reminiscent-of-famous-bands boxes, certainly not! But you have to start somewhere, and it is true that their sunny sound evoked the 60s wrapped into instantaneously catchy and sweet melodies.
In fact it is too bad that Jonathan Berlin, on vocals and guitar, andJared Bowser, on tambourine, only performed 4 of their songs (but I think they had another show in Santa Monica later on), but it was just enough to make me eager to hear more.
And Jonathan Berlin was not the type to let us clueless about his tunes, he was announcing their and was even giving some explanations, like for their most depressing (but also beautiful) one, ‘Dying alone, Without Yourself’, which sounded like a sad lullaby. He said it was written about afriend dying from a degenerating brain disorder: another point they share with the Lips, singing about death with happy-sunny riffs and dramatic-soaring vocals.
Even with one guitar, the sound was vast and Berlin’s vocals very powerful, while reconciling melancholy and soothingness. Listening to their bandcamp page (http://sunbears.bandcamp.com/album/you-will-live-forever)of course brings more to the picture, and the whole album ‘You Will LiveForever’ (which is about legacy, not immortality as Berlin explained) is definitively something to explore.