Monday, October 15, 2012

10/5 – The Early November, Cartel, Seahaven, Suns (CT) @ Heirloom Arts Theatre Show Review


Quick fact: For anyone who wants to see some talented musicians, be sure to check out any of these artists and show some support! This show was awesome!

I had no idea what to expect when going to this show. As a huge fan of specifically Cartel and Ace, I was excited to see what these guys could do live. However, since I hadn’t been to The Heirloom Arts Theatre in a few years I was weary about how the sound and the crowd would be. The Heirloom Arts Theatre turned out to be a great venue and the crowd dynamic was very, well, unique.

 
The local band that opened the show was the Easton/Redding band called Suns. As with any act opening the opener, this band had the job of warming up the crowd. I expected this crowd to be a little older since Cartel and Ace have been doing their thing for quite some time. However, the average age of the crowd was around 17-18, with a few older people milling about. As the stage was packed with equipment from the other three bands, Suns had to minimal room to move about and awkwardly stood about facing each other. Although the crowd was pretty quiet, I enjoyed these guys a lot. Suns is your typical CT indie type band but their lead guitarist is pretty damn talented.  Their sound is a synthesis of the American Football’s melodicism and Brand New’s intensity.


I’ll be honest, I never heard of Seahaven before the show but fell in love with the band from their first song. This band is for people that enjoy bands such as Transit and/or Day Trader. The most unique aspect of this band is the singer and frontman, Kyle Soto, resembles the singer from We Were Promised Jetpacks. Although the rest of the band had high energy, Soto seemed to just be your chill, typical, California dude. When these guys started jamming out the unresponsive crowd seemed to show a small spurt of energy in a mosh pit that died down pretty quickly.


The crowd turned up the heat when Cartel took the stage. They kicked off their set with Lucky St. and my god, Pugh still has the pipes he did in 2005 when recording Chroma. I was astonished by how on point all the band members were. You could tell this band really enjoyed doing what they’ve been doing for all this time. Although Pugh commented that he had gotten food poisoning from Denny’s earlier that day, he brought the energy to keep the crowd moving. Cartel played a good mixture of old and new songs, with a heavy focus on Chroma and Cycles. Cartel closed out their set with their widely known song Honestly.


Now, the first thing I thought when The Early November took the stage was how much Ace Enders reminds me of Michael Cera. I don’t mean that in a negative way but that’s the best way I can describe him. It was funny to see how he dealt with the quietness of the crowd in between songs as he openly admitted his awkwardness throughout the set. What I noticed was how genuine Ace was in thanking the crowd for support himself and his friends on the tour.
Ace jumped right into Digital Age, a song from The Early November’s latest album, In Currents. I must say, Ace’s live performance made me fall in love with the song much more. You see the feeling Ace puts into the words critiquing a movement toward the death of live music. The band played a very tight set and it was obvious how well each member knew their craft. The band’s bassist was a little over the top in trying to get the crowd’s attention, but seemed to balance out Ace’s soft-spoken aura. As The Early November has a decently sized catalogue, they weren’t able to play everything that the crowd wanted but they played a wide range of material. The high point of their set was when they jumped into Baby Blue. The crowd was flooded with nostalgia which prompted a great sing along!

Although the crowd wasn’t your traditional crowd, the show was great. The Heirloom Arts Theatre is the perfect size to maintain a balance between an intimate show and enough room to breathe. Aside from wireless transmitter issues during Cartel’s set, the sound was great. I definitely recommend anyone around the Danbury area to check the venue out and see a great show.

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