The Silver Liners - We Were Pirates - The Electric 11s - Brittany Jean -- Rock'n'Roll Hotel - Dec 3 3010

Brittany Jean - She plays acoustic and sings with a drummer and a guy who switches between electric guitar and bass. The drummer is a powerhouse, some might say too much at times, but not me. Between that and the electric guitar and bass, this is far from a nice little folk set. The vocals are good and do not lapse into being overly cute or precocious. The strength is evident and also does not go too far in that direction. The first song is excellent with great driving spirit. The rest of the set is solid with some songs having a little more bite to them. This is a nice set of music that can fit on many bills that cater to rock, folk, or Americana.


The Electric 11s - Here's a four-piece with a couple of guitars. One guitar sings all leads save one, although everyone else joins in for lots of thick choral work. The sound is far more old-school rock than modern indie rock, although there's a bit of merging at times. The lead guitarist can rock out as good as you would want and everyone can play pretty well. The songs just don't quite have the depth and attraction for me. They mentioned a brand new song called "January" I think and said it was kind of different. I guess by different, they meant really good as I thought it was the best cut of the night. Hopefully they will continue in this vein and become something quite good. There still will be room for that cover of "Whole Lotta Rosie" if they like.

We Were Pirates - A second viewing for me of this four-piece. I liked them before and I think I liked them even more this time. They have a pop-rock approach with vocals that head along toward a smooth pop line, yet with a deep undercurrent of gutsy indie rock below. Crunching guitars and a solid rhythm section will excite heavy rock fans, yet the songs will be catchy for a variety of pop and indie rock fans. This is a nice approach and this band has it together. Certainly worth future viewings for yours truly.

The Silver Liners - A keyboardist joins the 4-piece look made popular tonight. These guys had wonderful pop-rock songs that reminded me of a power-pop new wave rock approach made by some sort of conglmeration of the Dickies, the Zeros and Wazmo Nariz. Great stuff if there are hooks and there were loads of 'em. The keyboards weren't always high enough and a farfisa would have really sent me in orbit, but the sound was still great. The singer was fine and looked a bit like Daniel Stern, Jr. if there were such a person. Impressive set that had the decent sized crowd tonight rocking out (crowd was good all night). I will be queuing up for their next show if at all possible.

Quote of the Night: From some guy behind me "It was awesome" repeated 11 times in a 40 second period by my count. To be fair he did say "It was so awesome" a couple of times. I never heard what it was, but it seemed like it was more like a taco salad rather than a Pixies reunion.