Washed Out

I skipped the opener of this show, Beat Connection, because I saw them less than a week ago, and though good, not enough to motivate me to leave early. Washed Out is one of those bands that like Explosions in the Sky, watching them live provides a completely different experience to the point it feels like the band you are watching could not have been the one that recorded the music as well, but in a good way. More often than not it's when I see shows that are post-rock or chillwave, which I typically listen when I'm relaxed, so seeing all energy and excitement when it's being produced creates a nice little dichotomy of ideas in my head on the music. That said, I really enjoyed the show, it was exciting and lively, and well done. Another thing they did which I found to be cool, was to avoid the dumb "I'm leaving the stage, you better call and clap me back out for our scripted encore act" and simply left the stage saying, "now for a quick break, and we'll be back!".Overall a good show, "Eyes Be Closed" was great.

Neon Indian w/Purity Ring and Com Truise

Purity Ring opened the night off. This was my second time seeing them, and they were as fantastic as ever. I hope they continue to make more awesome music and have their own headlining tour sometime soon. Something about their awesome pipes/sampler/large drum/cool light effects setup just wins me over every time. Com Truise also played well, though I have to admit a lot his songs sound quite similar and so I kind of started to mentally drift during it, so not much to say there, it was a good, solid electronic set, but nothing stood out really. And then there was Neon Indian. Abso-friggin-lutely spectacular. Alan clearly takes his music and performances seriously, lots of sound checking in between songs, more than most shows, but completely worth it. Wonderfully loud keyboards alongside emphatic vocals, it was a blissful electronic dream. Best songs of the night were "Polish Girl" and "Arcade Blues". There was also a brief shout-out to Steve Jobs, and how Alan sold his car to buy his first MacBook Pro to create the first album on. One of the best shows I've seen in Seattle.

CSS w/MEN

MEN was far more entertaining than I anticipated, and people started dancing pretty early in the night at this show. It was at the Neptune Theatre, which was nice, I like the setup of that venue. As for Cansei de Ser Sexy, it was a mixed bag. In one aspect, I really enjoyed the setlist, which was nearly if not all songs from their first and third album (Their second album, Donkey, was a disaster of epic proportions), and energy-wise it was all there. But at the same time I felt like Lovefoxxx was just not all there, the outfits didn't work for her, from an attractive or entertaining standpoint, and I just felt like a lot of the stage antics were too planned (removing masks/layers of clothing and someone is waiting in the shadows to come snatch it from the air) or just overdone (the knee slides at seemingly random parts of songs). The best songs of the night were "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" and "Art Bitch". All in all it was an okay show, but like their last album, good but could've been much better.

Melt-Banana

I didn't go. I got sick and ended up staying home, so sad, a wasted ticket. Electric Six was also playing that night, I heard they were very entertaining live.

Star Slinger and oOoOO

So this was an interesting show to say the least. It was a much different crowd than I had initially anticipated, but primarily because this show was a part of the Decibel Festival, so it had a crowd makeup similar to a summer music festival rather than a club show with these two artists. The openers for this show were all pretty good, and none were really disappointing, so it started off on quite a good note (pun slightly intended). And Star Slinger was far more entertaining live than I had imagined. He had great transitions when he did them, and was just pretty impressive in general to watch, and his presence definitely helped get the dance party atmosphere going strong, which was really fun. On the other hand, oOoOO was a spectacular failing disappointment in my book. I had really been looking forward to seeing a witch house artist live, and I'd loved the EP. I got all excited when he came on stage and there was a projector screen that came down. But the happiness soon washed away as he essentially just hit play on his computer and then rocked back and forth near it until it was time to hit play on another song. To further exemplify this, it was to the point where, for his last song, he just hit play and exited the stage. So while I was happy with what my ears were hearing, I was very disappointed in what I saw. As if I wasn't already a little bothered by his performance, when he was on stage, he also began smoking a cigarette, and then had to have security come and explicitly tell him to put it out. With all that in mind, I have to say I lost some respect for oOoOO, and gained a ton more for Star Slinger (So Star Slinger earns the picture spot then).

Bright Eyes

Was pretty awesome, no lie, no depressed Conor Oberst, either, he was happy and energetic, which made for an exciting performance through and through. My favorite moments were undoubtedly "The Calendar Hung Itself" and "Road to Joy". As for "The Calendar Hung Itself", I honestly didn't expect it to be played. Though it's my favorite Bright Eyes song, it's not by any means one of his most popular, in fact it's #66 on Last.fm in terms of plays for Bright Eyes songs in the past 6 months. That said, I was very excited to hear the opening guitar strums, and Conor's animated expressions for the whole song made it amazing, that song alone made the show worth while. Then during "Road to Joy", Kurt Vile and the Violators also came on stage and there were about 10-12 people on stage playing instruments, and Conor drew the song out for a long time, of course all to build up to the climactic, "Let's fuck it up boys, make some noise!", which was fantastic live. He also individually introduced/thanked his whole band, a kind and personable gesture I don't see many artists do. Also I love the Paramount as a venue, the sound was good, the interior is gorgeous, and the staff was friendly. All in all one of my favorite shows in Seattle.