#Brian and Nikki Silversunpickups | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

certifiablyplatinum · 8 years

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Silversun Pickups (with Bear Hands) Newport Music Hall, 6/25

“To feel safe again, look over your shoulder....

Very carefully, look over your shoulder....”

-so you’ll be able to dodge obnoxious concert novices who’re acting like it’s their first time out after being locked up in their grandma’s pantry for 10 years....

Seriously folks. SSPU has been one of my ab favorites for a decade. The dramatic, clamoring surge of Brian Aubert’s otherwordly, feminine vocals mixed with his impeccable guitar fingerplay (that chugging crescendo through The Royal We, Lazy Eye, Panic Switch, et. al.) combined with bassist Nikki’s coolness (and the fact that she’s a mom of twins!) just blended a bunch of heady, eerie, melodic favorite styles together, to where upon the release of Better Nature last fall (anxiously waiting for clunkers so their impeccable record of EVERY DAMN SONG being a good one wasn’t tarnished) I announced, “I think I seriously have liked EVERY Silversun song, ever.” They are DRAMATIC. They tell tales with vivid, bloody, beautiful imagery. Brian screams his impassioned poetry through a falsetto and then, for a song like “Ragamuffin” quietly brings it back down, over and over. And, the guy is damn funny at shows - the last time I saw the band, they lurched into an intro and Brian suddenly stopped, waved his hands like a ref calling “OUT” and said, “What the hell was that? We’re starting that again.”

Anyway, at the Newport show on a hot, sultry night, they didn’t disappoint with their badass jams, dreamy atmospherics, crowd banter (Brian encouraged the crowd: “Everybody look at Nikki during this song - she gets embarrassed” right before her vocal debut in ‘Last Dance/Circadian Rhythm’) and a great mix of old and new. “Better Nature” is a softer, more polished lullaby of an album, with intricately woven vocals, than the edgier, raw “Swoon” and/or “Neck of the Woods.”. They launched right into the night with “Cradle (Better Nature)” and then the hits kept coming: Well Thought out Twinkles, The Pit, Panic Switch, the can’t-miss scorcher Lazy Eye, and three encores: Kissing Families, Dots and Dashes, and the Wild Kind.

(Joe, Brian, Nikki) ^^

(Funny aside, if I may veer off topic. Along with the puking, pummeling crowd, I myself began the evening as a hot mess, when I literally clomped my way out of the bar next door’s bathroom before the show and realized MY ENTIRE wedge of my heel was flapping in the breeze, unglued. As I jokingly hit a “power stance” where I lunged forward, not moving my shoe from its spot, and said “this is how I am going to dance all night”, I looked down and saw I had wisps of gorgeous toilet paper flowing underneath the broken sole -- the classy piece de resistance. My husband and comrade fled to UDF and purchased a role of duct tape, MacGyver style. He appeared inside the venue what seemed to be 5 seconds later, like a superhero, grabbed my gross shoe, ripped giant strips of duct tape off with his teeth and rolled that whole sole up in duct tape with a satisfied: “There. That shoe will last you all night.” (Security asked him- “sir, what are you doing bringing in duct tape?” and he said, “Ohhh... my wife’s shoe broke.”) Anyway.

(MY SHOE GETTING BOUND) ^^^

Another tiny disappointment was the sound didn’t hit me in the brains and punch me in the sternum. With a band like SSPU, you want that full wall to hit you. But it just seemed kind of quiet - like when you have a bad mp3 and keep wanting to turn up your headphones to feel the throb, but it never gets there. The mix seemed a little off, a little quiet, lacking a bit of depth; even when I was right next to the speakers. When we stood in the back, we could have been watching a concert video wayyy off in the distance. Normally in the back of the house, I can hear just as well - even better most times, because you get the full mix.

Still, SSPU remains one of my favorites. They are loud, lush and wonderful. Brooklyn’s Bear Hands opened the show with bright, punchy, high-energy fun; the upbeat “Agora” and the staccato electronica of “Winner’s Circle” prepping the crowd for some Silversun fun.

Bear Hands ^^

#Brian and Nikki Silversunpickups

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