The Wedding Present; Savoir Adore @ South Street Seaport

The Wedding Present; Savoir Adore
@ South Street Seaport
New York, NY - August 13, 2010

Admittedly, up until a month or two ago, I had never heard of the Wedding Present but was taken with a radio performance they did. I made no effort to brush up, get acquainted, or do anything else in the build-up to this performance so I have no knowledge of the band except that their well-received record Bizarro was released 21 years ago. I cannot even begin to fake any sort of context for the band, or the review. Except to say that I had a great time watching band that seems to have straddled the point in between early 80's power pop and today's jangly slightly distorted plethora of bands. In other words, they seem to come from exactly the period that they did. And they know their place. The lead singer (whose name I just learned moments ago is David Gedge) said after one song, "I'd like to see the XX write a song like that." Ouch.

I only caught the last couple of songs by Savoir Adore but they sounded as sweetly fine tuned as they did at CMJ last year. The kids are on the move.

CMJ Music Marathon 2009: Surfer Blood; Grooms; Savoir Adore @ Brooklyn Bowl

Surfer Blood; Grooms; Savoir Adore
@ Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY - October 24, 2009

The classiest bowling joint in all the world is also a venue (ala Asbury Lanes) and it played host to After The Jump's CMJ day party. The first band went on an hour and a half after advertised, the second played a good 40 after that, and the third band played an hour after the second band and all played for about 20 minutes. Uh huh.

Surfer Blood do "Swim to Reach the End", a rollicking good song that reflects their penchant for afro and carib sounds. Yeah yeah Vampire Weekend I know. Well more than one band can do it you know. Too bad they showed up an hour late, and the guitar player busted his guitar 2 chords into the song and it took them forever to play again.

The gloomy outfit known as Grooms play their instruments well but not well together. Sorry guys. The drummer has chops though.

Savoir Adore look and sound like the excellent Montreal band Stars. They were pleasant almost to a fault. I would like to see them again.