[ATTENDED: June 24, 2017] Palberta
For Palberta, I came down from the balcony because the room had cleared out some–it was really hot so people headed outside for a mew minutes. I grabbed a spot pretty close and then just before the band went on a tall fellow with artificial flowers (that seemed like he was going to give to the band but never did) stood on front of me.
I’d only heard of Palberta after seeing that they were going to open for Palm. They have gotten some write ups in some pretty major publications (in Feb they were mention in Rolling Stone as 1 of 10 new bands to get to know). In that article, Rolling Stone says
sing disjointed playground punk that embraces both dissonance and innocence, trading instruments as quickly as they change ideas: A good 80 percent of the songs poke and scurry off before two minutes are up. “At this point writing short songs feels more intuitive for us than intentional – it’s the natural way,” says Nina Ryser. “It kind of reflects the song writing process itself: frenzied, fast, kind of jumbled.”
And that’s a pretty apt description of the band (I’m fairly surprised that they were mentioned there at all).
And the band says:
“We still switch instruments as a result of writing our songs in different formations. It’s a great thing, because we’re all eager to learn and grow as drummers, bassists and guitarists, so it gives us a chance to rock on each instrument,” says Ryser. “The drawback is that it lends itself to pretty awkward transitions when we play live – mostly because breaking up loud, heavy songs with silence can be awkward. Lots of muttering aloud as we pass instruments to each other, sometimes someone is stuck with a bass and guitar in each hand, tripping over cables.”
And they did! There were five iterations of the band:
Nina on bass; Ani on guitar and Lily on drums (pic 1)
Ani on bass; Nina on guitar and Lily on drums (pic 2)
Nina on bass; Lily on guitar and Ani on drums
Lily on bass; Nina on guitar and Ani on drums (pic 3)
Ani on bass; Lily on guitar and Nina on drums (pic 4)
And yes there were some silences as they switched places, but so what, it was really fun (and meant lots of photos of the different iterations).
I don’t really know any of the songs the band played, although I’m getting some titles from their bandcamp page. There were some all out punk rockers, some weird noisy collaborations, and some surprisingly pretty moments. Oftentimes the music sounded like it was improvised and made upon the spot–or even like they were just doing whatever struck them at the moment–but it was incredible how tight their musicianship was–with many stops and starts and time changes, they were always in sync.
Even if the guitar was playing strange noises (seemingly random slides up the guitar or playing notes that are higher than the fret board) the pacing was always spot on. And when they sang together it was pretty great.
They had some really great harmonies. Sometimes to start a song, sometimes in the middle of the song. And then there might be some really loud fast chaotic music–usually thudding bass and interesting drum patterns (lots of wood block) and then back to the singing.
But even after all of the noisy sections, I loved that when they played “She Feels That Way” that they checked and double checked and actually stopped and restarted the song so that their harmonies were perfect.
It was a total DIY experience and reminded me a lot of the punky music I listened to back in college.
Here’s some songs I’m pretty sure they played:
- Jaws
- Holiday
- She Feels That Way
- Finish My Bread
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