BigYawn

I’m happy to say, so far anyway, We Were Promised Jetpacks(263) debut, These Four Walls, is one of my favorite albums of 2009. The Glaswegian four-piece hit it on all cylinders, and turn up the energy when necessary. It is an album of the moment, for me at least, and the perfect dose of rock and roll I needed this Summer. That said, I was obviously rather stoked to see them live. And, it turns out, so were the majority of people at this show. When the opener draws more of a crowd than the headliner, that is reason to take notice.

They ran through almost all of their debut in 4o minutes, and seemed genuinely taken aback by the audiences excitement and applause. One of the few moments I experienced this year where the band literally broke into smiles due to the audiences reaction. Sadly too rare, but they deserved it, great, great set.

BrakesBrakesBrakes(264), or better known as Brakes in countries without lots of lawyers, also put out a fantastic album this year, Touchdown. Continuing their genre hopping, the band played a record amount of music. Since many of their songs are short, and fairly stylistically varied, they were able to really switch it up, song after song. From punk to indie, to country to acoustic ballads, nothing seemed out of the realm of possibilities. After playing 11 or 12 songs in 30 minutes the band settled down and the remainder of their set included the gorgeous “No Return,” one of the few songs all year that struck me this powerfully.

Given their attitudes and the frantic energy they play with, it is really hard not to love Brakes. And given the first two bands, it was hard not to love this bill.

The Twilight Sad(265) initially did not excite me as much as their two openers but that was largely due to me making judgments on their recorded material. It just sounds a little too mopey for me, too lacking in energy. And some of that carried over live. The bands lack of crescendos and powerful choruses bothers me for some reason. But, the good part was that they were much more lively on stage, and the songs ended up significantly more powerful, which surprised me. Granted, not hanging. But a 50% improvement is a long way to go for a band. Sadly, I had to leave early, but I would absolutely check them out again.

This was one of the few bills where I was legitimately interested in all of the bands on the bill, and down right excited for most of them. Happily, the bands delivered completely, and left me generally wanting more from them, in a good way. Scratch that, in a great way.