I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 23, 2017] Sunflower Bean

Two years ago I saw Sunflower Bean open for Pixies. I thought they were great live and I wanted to see them again.  Since then, they have put out a second album and another EP.

When I saw that they were opening the Spoon/Cage the Elephant/Beck show, I knew I wanted to get there by 6 to see them again.  They were only given 25 minutes, and there were only about 25 people in the arena (not including the lawn), but they rocked the house.

In the two years since I’ve seen them, they have grown bigger (adding a keyboard player) and more confident.  Julia Cumming was a lot louder and more brash as the frontwoman–shouting to the people in the back (and the lawn) and encouraging us all to stand for the final song.  She also sounded great, employing a few different vocal styles on each song.  As always her bass (she plays a Rickenbacker, which is awesome) sounded great.  The biggest change was in her look.  Last time she was wearing a dress and had a fairly normal hairstyle.  For this show she was all glammed out, with a cool pink tigerprint dress and her hair and make up very new wave.  She looked an awful lot like Debbie Harry.

They opened with a song I didn’t recognize–had I not listened to their new album enough?  No!  They released an EP that I didn’t know about called King of the Dudes.  It’s much more synthy and glam than their other two albums (each of which sounds different from the other as well).  The opening song “King of the Dudes” set the tone for their new look and style.

For this set they played two songs from each of their releases.  They follow “Dudes” with “Twentytwo” which seemed a bit more mellow than on the record.  But they got everyone moving with the wonderful “Easier Said” from their first album.  It’s so catchy and I love the guitars.

Lead guitarist Nick Kivlen was wearing a suit (it was hot, too), with the pants several inches shorter than his legs.  His guitar playing is fantastic.  From the pretty melodies on the older songs to the blistering solos he did during some of the jams, he’s a great musician.  He also sang lead on a couple of songs, including “I Was a Fool” on which he sang into the telephone on his mic stand.  This gave the vocals a neat tinny echoey effect which sounded very cool.

I also really love “I Was Home” (What did you do today? I was home and then I wasn’t) which is also really catchy and give Nick a jamming section to solo on.

Drummer Jacob Faber was tucked away in the back, but he was playing really hard, with some nice fills.  Keyboardist Danny Ayala was a lot of fun.  He was also wearing a tigerprint shirt (aqua).  But it was his stage presence that was so much fun.  At one point he seemed to be hiding under his keyboard while still playing and at another point he picked up his keyboard and played it like a keytar except that it was a full size keyboard.

He also played bass on the final song while Julia sang lead on for “Come for Me.”

This is another new song and could be huge.

Julia had us all stand up for this unabashedly poppy song.  Everyone did and we all danced around.  It turned into a fun sing-along.

The only thing that I missed in this set was that the last time they did an instrumental jam that totally rocked and Julia was a maniac during it.  She was a bit more reserved (perhaps the tightness of her dress prevented her from pogoing like a lunatic).

Once again, I left their show wanting to see them for a full set and not just 25-20 minutes.  And maybe inside next time?

SETLISTS

∉ Human Ceremony 2016
½ 22 in Blue 2018
ℜ King of the Dudes EP 2019