Show Review: Sea & Cake 11/4/11 Magic Stick.

So I’ve had a week to ruminate on last Friday’s Sea and Cake show at the Magic Stick, nearly get carjacked, and forget the world in studies and other distractions (such as watching hours of Batman reruns.) But, the time has come to recount you, dear reader, my thoughts on the night of November fourth.

So, to be honest, this isn’t exactly the type of show I would have immediately gone to on my own, which is exactly why I chose to cover it- either I get to turn in a snarky review, or I get to be surprised at how much I enjoy the show. Its a win-win for me.

Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by the performances. Its so rare these days that I go see many out of town or national acts that I forgot that when they say “Doors at 8pm” they actually mean it. (I can recall clearly, times where in previous bands I was told to be at the bar to “load in” at X o’clock, only to wait for an hour and a half in the dead of winter because bar staff had not arrived. That’s a Detroit show for you.) So I arrived part way into the first set.

Up first was Adam’s Castle. Upon hearing them play, I realized I had crossed paths with their music years ago. Turns out they are Michigan ex-pats, now located in New York, which is alright if you like saxophones. I had seen them years prior around town. They remained conceptually the same as years ago – a powerful rhythm section held together by melodies on keyboard, each member of the trio propelling the other as the songs, which worked like movements in a sense, progressed, almost always to a big crescendo. A major difference, which keyboardist Sammy would later point out to me, was the addition of an electric organ. Laden with effects, this instrument added plenty of colors to the palette of this already talented and interesting trio.

After the first set it was time to go downstairs. After five minutes of just leaning against one of the poles in the Stick with no one to talk to, girls start to give you creepy looks if you don’t move around. So, I headed downstairs to grab a beer. (Yes, there is a beer that is technically cheaper downstairs, fellow frugally minded drunks.) When I ended up back upstairs, I finally started to see some folks that I usually run into at shows, as opposed to the 45 year old dudes and 22 year old vegan-girl-wearing-leather-jacket set I had observed upon arrival.

Next, Brokeback took the stage. The graying band leader said about 7 words throughout the course of the set and two of them were “Thanks.” Perhaps some of it was that he was visibly a bit older than his compatriots, but I’m guessing it was his excellent guitar work that lent him a certain shaman-like quality throughout the performance. His lead work reminded me a bit of Neil Young, or a young Carlos Santana, but the tone was distinctly more south-western influenced. The band was solid. The songs, generally arranged simply, usually two or three parts, repeated and then the song would be done. It was when the band really stretched out that you were able to kind of zone into it with them, and although I usually like bands that draw an audience in with stage antics, it was rewarding to have a more cerebral experience with a live band.

Finally, after about a half hour or so, the headliner, The Sea and Cake arrived onstage to little fanfare except the applause of the crowd. The crowd was fairly warm from the start, but like myself, it seemed to take them about 3-4 songs to really begin to get excited. The Sea and Cake, it seemed, were just warming up. I was impressed with the interesting guitar work and interplay between Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt, and the rhythm section was amazing, with obvious praise due to drummer John McEntire, and although a more subtle force, as the show wound on, I couldn’t help but notice that bassist Eric Claridge was always exactly where he should be.

A nice thing about going to a show featuring a band with almost 20 years of history, all of which you are ignorant to, is that it really doesn’t matter if the song is their first major breakthrough, or a newer track that the older fanbase hasn’t adopted yet. That was sort of my experience. At about the halfway mark of their set, Prekop, who has been a man of few, but charming words thus far, steps to the mic and says “This is probably the first song we ever wrote.” They start into a fairly uptempo number, whose name I never learned but I enjoyed quite a bit. But, the next song, which featured a sample looped over the band was a stunner- It stretched out, into a very impressive bit of guitar play by Prewitt, and an intense drum bit by McEntire- neither could be fully called a “solo” because it really felt like the right thing to do for the song, not just a jammy show off moment . If sources in the crowd are correct, the song was “The Moonlight Butterfly,” the title track to their most recent LP. From that point forward, having fully captured my respect and attention, the rest of the set was a revelation. A great set from a group of great veteran performers. They played for a bit over an hour and did a fairly generous encore, because as Prekop said, “After all, it is friday night.”

It was an absolutely great time, even if sometimes I had to squint to make sure I wasn’t at the Double Door circa 1999.

DVD Bonus Feature:

In between Brokeback and Sea and Cake, I stepped downstairs to the Garden Bowl and caught a good chunk of the Wax Idols set. Wax Idols is apparently a California group, formed around Hether Fortune, who has what seems to be a revolving door line-up for her sounds. Point is, it sounded like the Jesus and Mary Chain doing a Ramones album with female vocals. In other words, it was loud, treble-laden, and fucking awesome. Check them out!