Sunday, October 7, 2012

Reverb Fest 2012

Attended my second annual Reverb Fest in Ballard on Saturday. Got videos of 14 acts out of 60 or so. There were some bands at Reverb that I had seen before like Kithkin, but I missed most of them. 13 of the 14 bands were "new to me" and Sweetwater was the only band we saw that I had seen before. I like that, I got to see a pile of new bands and they were all fun to watch and worth seeing in one way and another.

We started out with Gold Records at the 2 Bit Saloon, it was fun and loud, and the guitarist did some interesting keyboard work too.

Country Lips played a Spanish language tune dedicated to Mexico, catchy and bouncy, nice stuff.

Cristina Bautista carries lead vocals and fronts the band in her new self named outfit. Last time I saw her was with Visqueen, glad to see her putting on a show.

So Pitted at the Eagle was scruffy, loud and fast. Great fun! The guitarist and drummer swapped instruments for their final number.

Sweetwater is a favorite, I like the sound of the vocals and the guitar oriented rock, a solid performance that went over well with the audience.

Whitney Ballen did her beautiful gentle vocal music, I wish the ambient noise were lower. In other words the dude next to me that kept talking - I wish he'd been on the other side of the room. The music was gorgeous mostly due to the emotive voice with a pretty backing guitar part, very nice set.

Cosmic Panther Land Band was great, forging an instant classic - "I feel like going back to the Panther Land" - tight competent well written music with a sense of humor.

OC Notes did a set at the Hilliard Brewery that was interesting. OC Notes got that good hip hop club feel going, more of a dancing focus.

Shivering Denizens put on a muscular set of bluegrassy, hillbilly, rootsie music that was well done, with most songs short and obnoxious the way Rock and Roll was meant to be. There was even a bit of yodeling.

Juli C at the Hilliard Brewery put on an energetic set. Her lyrics were interesting and her flow worked well both solo and with a co-vocalist as she worked through her set and brought a couple of collaborators up. The DJ with Juli C did the best live scratching I've ever heard which added a fun element to the performance.

Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown played an old school thumping warbling rock with towering simple short guitar riffs, nice stuff.

Naomi Punk had a heavy grinding sound that I quite enjoyed, the distorted vocals lay over that in an interesting combination, well written with complex internal rhythms, I really enjoy this song:

Side Saddle played with the visuals - blond and brunette brides fronting the band, their duet on "When Will I Be Loved" was great: They ranged from pop to country with authority

We finshed up with Mid Day Veil, and I like it! Good spooky sound, By this time the beer was catching up with me, and while I might get the camera turned on I wasn't paying much attention to the camera after that. The sound is still fine, at least.

We finally staggerred out (well, I staggered, Carina was the designated driver so she wasn't staggering) shortly before midnight and headed home, tired, drunk and happy. Another successful Reverb atttended, another 13 new local bands discovered. I knew Whitney Ballen and Juli C before I saw them perform at Reverb so it was cool finally getting to see them live, and seeing Sweetwater again was cool.

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