After Yuna, I ran to the stage where Floridian Surfer Blood were ready to start their set. And they gave to young people what they wanted, some very melodious songs, and at the same time an occasion to do some serious crowd surfing. These surfers have a knack for really catchy tunes (‘Squeezing Blood’, ‘Weird Shapes’ ‘Say Yes to Me’) part Weezer, part Ramones, plus may be something from Pavement, and they played their songs with coolness, some reverb in the guitars and a gentle detachment, without messing too much with them. It was a happy beachy sound, it transpired youth and carelessness, and totally seduced the crowd and myself at the first riffs.
First, they were playing their most nonchalant songs, which did not prevent people to start crowd surfing right away, then frontman John Paul Pitts said they were going up a notch, and suddenly they were playing much faster with people going crazy along the very good and sunny harmonies of ‘Miranda’. Surfer Blood’s rock is filled with catchy, super-rewarding choruses, cheering guitars, more sing-alongs than you can count and honestly they were very easy to like.
‘This song is about counting calories’, said Pitts before singing ‘Take it Easy’, a different type of tune which made him decide to take a crowd bath, surfing a bit then hugging fans in the pit. The girls in the front were all over him, apparently not alarmed by the fact that Pitts was arrested for domestic battery a little while ago. What? This friendly nerdy-looking guy? I am just making allusion to this because it was all over this Pitchfork’s review of their last album ‘Pythons’ last year, where the author was trying very hard to read the songs autobiographically,… so much for the separation between the art and…. I will never do that! Pitts was having a great time and was acting unpretentiously, interacting with fans, while a grown man with a full beard was jumping non-stop, arm-in-the-air and finger-pointing-to-the-stage, so no it wasn’t only the girls.
Although I had a very poor knowledge of the band before seeing them, ‘Swim’ sounded strangely familiar, it was their breakout single apparently, and the tune was representing so vividly their brand of pop-rock, power-chord chorus almost drown in reverb and an instantaneously hummable melody, like most of their songs. Where did these kids find all this abundance of sweet hooks? I asked myself,… I am always impressed when these things happen, Surfer Blood gave a delightful poppy and rocking set, and they looked like the ultimate crowd teasers. They kept for the end the least poppy of their songs, the long slow burn of ‘Anchorage’, and the crowd surfing was the rage. Living in Los Angeles, I don’t remember hearing about a lot of bands coming from Florida, so on Saturday afternoon, they looked like the best thing coming from the sunshine state since Tom Petty.
More pictures of the show here
