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I missed most of Street to Nowhere's set because I was conducting an interview. I caught their last two songs. The first one was pretty boring, but the second one I heard was damn entertaining. It was catchy, poppy and melodic; just a happy song to chill out to and enjoy.
I was pretty stoked about seeing Anathallo live. They have a real experimental and innovative sound on disc, and I was looking forward to seeing how that came off in a live setting. They had an awesomely cool stage set up, complete with a concert bass drum, a smaller bass drum, a floor tom in the middle of the stage, two glockenspiels, a melodica, a trumpet, trombone, the typical rock band instruments, and a computer, along with a bunch of other instruments that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Anathallo more than lived up to the preconceived hype I had floating around in my head. Watching them play live was akin to watching a concert band percussion section. Most of the members would be hopping instruments during each song. I saw one guy play at least three instruments in three pretty spaced out places in the course of one song. They also used their bodies as instruments, making good use of hands and feet (and crowd participation), as well as contorting their voices into numerous sounds.
Anathallo played a very theatrical set, taking music as an artform to the next level (think bands like Tarantula A.D. and Dresden Dolls). It was pretty amazing watching eight people on a stage creating so much energy. These guys (and girl) are truly a sight to be seen; a band that needs to be watched as well as heard.
Rainer Maria didn't have the instrumentation of the band that preceeded them, but they did have the powerful voice of Caithlin De Marrais, who sounded as good as ever. She sang with such passion that made me an instant fan of these songs, even though I wasn't familiar with the majority of them. They played with a lot of passion that made for a very impressive set, making for a good night of music.
Written by: RF