Twin Sister, Ava Luna and Lemolo at the Vera Project

On a Tuesday in early February I dropped by the Vera Project after work for the Programming Committee meeting and ended up volunteering to stay to work "Lead Front Door" (basically selling tickets) for the Twin Sisters, Ava Luna and Lemolo show later that night. I'd heard good things about Lemolo, a local band, although I'd never actually heard them. Twin Sister and Ava Luna were new to me which is cool, I like hearing bands I know nothing about.

I set my video camera up on the catwalk and snuck into the venue on occasion to take pictures. First up was Lemolo, a duo with two women, one mostly playing drums and the other trading off between guitar and keyboards and singing.

They had a nice full sound which can be a little challenging for a duo and played fun upbeat songs that were catchy.

The audience turned out early for the local band which was a little unusual, they usually trickle in more for the later bands. Apparently Lemolo is popular locally, which makes sense - I'd heard of them before I actually ever heard them play and it's usually the other way round.

Next up was Ava Luna. They had six performers on stage playing guitar, bass, drums, a couple of keyboards, and a vocalist. More than one of them sang so they were able to get some interesting harmonies and vary their sound by using different lead vocalists.

They tended towards a more deliberate pacing and a surprisingly stripped down sound for having so many instruments. The dynamics in this one are interesting, with the beat on the drums always present and the other instruments joining in and then dropping back out repeatedly, isolating the vocals and drums on occasion.

I enjoyed their set, and their thoughtful, introspective approach. The sound had more variety and dynamics than most bands use, which was a nice change of pace.

Twin Sister took the stage for the headlining set. Unfortunately I was only able to see a short bit of the set, since I had to catch the last bus home. What I did see was interesting; they had 5 people on stage playing drums, bass, guitar and keyboards with a woman doing lead vocals.

For this song (the only one I managed to get) they have an interesting spacey synthesizer driven opening (the guitarist plays some synth during the opening too) that builds and swells, then fades into the background a it as the vocals and drums carry the middle section. The video goes wonky half way through - a wooden panel fell over onto my tripod and broke it (dang!) so there's no visual, but you can still hear the est of the song.

So I got to see a fun show, although I had to leave too soon to see the last act, and losing my tripod was a bit of a bummer. Considering how many times I've taken multiple cameras into mosh pits I guess I have to consider myself pretty lucky, this is the fist time I've lost any equipment and I've got a spare tripod so it's not that big of a deal.