LIVE: Ivan & Alyosha w/The Lone Bellow @ DC9 - 4/17/13
If you happened to be at DC9 last Wednesday, you can feel pretty confident you saw two bands that should end up on a lot of “best of” lists at the end of the year.
The double bill of The Lone Bellow and Ivan & Alyosha may be one of DC9’s best line-ups of the year, and they were able to do it twice (with Twin Forks opening for the later show). The bill was rumored to be planned months before the release of either band’s new albums, and after the first show sold out an early show was added and also quickly filled up. One of the dangers of a line-up like this is over-hype -- and without a doubt there was enough hype to put both bands in peril of falling victim -- but fortunately each band pulled its weight, and they both put on two great shows.
The Lone Bellow’s Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin let the crowd know that the late show was their third performance of the day, and anticipated that this one would be the best. They then set about proving it, despite the opening song starting inauspiciously with a sound issue. Williams followed “You Can Be All Kinds of Emotional,” with jokes about the technical difficulties, and set the tone for a night of camaraderie between the band and the audience. As if to echo the sentiment, the band spotted a friend in the audience and called her out, announcing, “This woman has been to seven of our shows!”
“You Never Need Nobody” brought loud cheers of recognition, as fans turned to each other with smiles and nods as if to say, “Yes, THIS one!” for the first cut from the band’s self-titled debut album. At the end of a floor-shaking, foot-stomping sing along, Williams announced with genuine pleasure, “People don’t usually sing like that! You all sing!” While “Two Sides of Lonely,” may have slowed things up a bit, it was performed with as much effort and energy as the up-tempo numbers -- even if they had played three shows in a 12-hour period, they showed no evidence that they’d not just woken up from a fresh slumber fully rested.
On record, The Lone Bellow sounds crisp, clear and flawless. On stage, they bring the same perfection but add a layer of emotional intonation to the vocals, breathing another layer of life to the songs. The anthemic “Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold” rang less like a performance than a party, with the lyric “It’s all right, it’s all right” coming out as a release from everything that was not all right about the week following the tragedy in Boston. “You don’t Love Me Like You Used To” emphasized Pipkin’s vocals, which managed to capture an aching heartbreak even as the refrain “I can’t go on this way” came across more like a commitment to action.
At DC9, the line between the band and the audience feels almost artificial, particularly when the show is sold out -- the stage isn’t much higher than the floor, so it’s mostly lighting that separates performers from fans. With the rapport built on Wednesday, that barrier was almost nonexistent, so when Williams wandered out into the audience on “The One You Should’ve Let Go,” he was comfortably surrounded by would-be friends who sang right along with him. Before “Button,” Williams told the audience we were so close he could smell us. And what did we smell like? Willimams quipped, “Chips…No, that’s Brian…no, he smells like whiskey.”
The band ended with “Teach Me to Know,” a quiet song that starts with a Williams solo and continues with the full trio, and at this performance most of the audience as well, joining in with “You get carried away.” It was a perfect way to close Lone Bellow’s conversational set. With the release of their first album, this is going to be a big year for the Lone Bellow, with a full tour including appearances at Newport Folk Festival, Bumbershoot, and Outside Lands. The Lone Bellow will sweep you up in giant smiles, perfect harmonies, emphatic delivery, sideways glances and the pure joy of playing and singing music with people you love.
Unfortunately, by the time Seattle-based Ivan & Alyosha took the stage the Metro-dependent members of the crowd had to exit in order to get home, but that didn’t stop the band from emerging full of smiles. While perhaps slightly more mellow on stage than the Lone Bellow, the foursome opened with a couple of infectious songs from their new album and proved to be just as engaging as the band preceding.
During “Be Your Man” and “Fathers Be Kind,” members of Ivan & Alyosha danced around with their instruments as much as the DC9 stage would allow, and again, the stage construction itself erased the line between performers and audience. During song breaks lead singer Tim Wilson wondered a bit what it was like living in DC, and if being out late at night would have any impact on the government the next day. Continuing with questions about career paths and jobs, it was obvious that the crowd would much rather go have a beer with the band than attempt to distill complex job titles into something you could shout out at a show.
Ivan & Alyosha’s music crosses more micro-genres than that of the Lone Bellow, and the Lone Bellow even dresses the part for a band playing Americana-based music. Ivan & Alyosha’s music wanders just a bit more into pop, while staying rooted in indie-folk sensibilities. The song “Who Are You” recalls Death Cab for Cutie with its pop-song rhythms, and often I&A’s songs inspire less foot-stomping and more outright dancing than their bill-mates on Wednesday.
Late in the set Tim Wilson broke a string on his guitar, but rather than take the time to replace it, the call went out for the Lone Bellow’s Zach Williams. To cheers of “Zach to the rescue,” one of Williams’ acoustic guitars was located and brought to the stage, while someone called out to Tim Wilson to tell a joke. He looked down and shook his head, saying, “I’m not a very funny man,” but it was evident throughout the evening that the audience didn’t really believe him.
The various members of Ivan & Alyosha frequently found themselves turned around on stage, coming together in a circle in front of the drummer -- since they were all whirling and twisting as they played, they only narrowly avoided serious collisions. For most of the night, guitar player Tim Kim was little more than a blur.
The majority of their set was drawn from the debut full-length All the Times We Had, released in February on Dualtone Records. The band has been around since 2007 and has released a string of EPs, some of which provided base material for the album. In an age when half-formed ideas can become festival sensations, the art and care that Ivan & Alyosha bring to the stage, evident in the beautiful execution of well-crafted songs, is truly refreshing. Ending the evening with “Running for Cover,” they brought the room together for one final big group hug disguised as a beautifully harmonized track. As Ivan & Alyosha and The Lone Bellow continue their joint tour across the country for a few more dates before splitting, try to catch one or both bands if you missed Wednesday -- in addition to seeing bands you may end up seeing on best of the year lists, you maybe able to add that you’ve seen one of the most engaging live shows, too.
