Starting last Tuesday and running until mid-November I will be attending on average approximately one concert a week. Casting about for a catchy name to describe this oddity I settled on Roktoberfest 2009. The first band on the docket? The Silversun Pickups playing at the Orbit Room in Grand Rapids.
There’s no sense in dragging things out, the Silversun Pickups flat rocked out. After a pair of fair to decent opening acts, Cage the Elephant and Manchester Orchestra, the Pickups came out and proceeded to smash through an hour and a half set of distortion and soft, screaming vocals. They played a nice mix of old and new material, ending the main set with a fevered Panic Switch>Lazy Eye.
As the Common Reactor encore faded out in a wash of electronic noise the thing that I most enjoyed about the concert was that band was so obviously having fun on stage. I have seen groups in the past that treat concerts as intense serious business. While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, my personal preference is for bands that outwardly enjoy what they do. While Brian Aubert and company played the music straight, they were also acknowledged the audience and took pauses in the tunes to indulge in a little banter. At one point Aubert mentioned this was the first time the band had played in Grand Rapids, and professed to be struck by the enthusiasm of the crowd. The cynic in me wonders how much of that is simple stagecraft — in all the years I’ve been going to concerts I don’t think I’ve ever seen an act say a crowd was bad — but later on in the show Aubert played around with that cliche so I choose to believe the band’s appreciation for the crowds appreciation was genuine.
In the end, I greatly enjoyed the show, and the Silversun Pickups are without a doubt going into the category of bands I will travel to see. They play great music, and put on a good show while doing it.
Next up, up and coming bluegrass band Greensky Bluegrass at the Ark in Ann Arbor.