Porches - Japanese Breakfast - Rivergazer -- Rock'n'Roll Hotel - Sep 4 2016

Rivergazer - Two guys assume the stage, one on bass with backing vocals and the other on electronics, keyboards and lead vocals. Although this immediately reminds me of my distaste for drum machines, it is good to seem them adding their own playing to the beats and backing tracks they employ. Still it seems a bit too artificial at first, although the lush pop elements come through. Thankfully, they do have a few decent songs that make there way in and the vocals are well handled throughout. Not my cup of tea, but where the depth and emotion come through enough, they had something to offer me. The crowd has taken to their sound relatively well, too.

Japanese Breakfast - Michelle Zauner brings along a fine band with her tonight with plenty of guitar, bass, drums, and a wee bit of keyboards helping her bring her brand of pop rock to fruition. After a really long set up where they showed they some how didn't get in for a sound check earlier, they started things off. By the second song I forgot about the delay and was happy to see the band humming along with a tougher style than I expected. Yeah, the pop is there, but it is almost more indie rock or power pop depending on the focus of the song. They are building this set nicely with some really exciting material unfolding. There is almost a cool drone to the songs, but the warmth is there in voice and in the hook. Very engaging set, full of style and substance and the nearly full club was quite into this all.

Alas, I did not have time to see Porches, although I had wanted to see if they were better live than I thought on album. But based on the size of the crowd, I would guess everything worked out well for all.