• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Grizzly Bear

Thursday, Sept. 28

Spaceland

Talk about marking your territory.

On a night when the Los Angeles hipster population was evenly divided – Sonic Youth and M. Ward were last Thursday’s other big draws – the Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear played to a packed, enthusiastic house at Silverlake club Spaceland.

The two opening acts didn’t fare quite as well. Up first was Hour of the Shipwreck, which played fractured pop that evoked Sunny Day Real Estate and At The Drive In. The lead singer had terrific, furry dreadlocks, while the female drummer – easily the band’s most intense musician – sported a pixie cut. The five-piece band was best when it exchanged the crunch for psychedelic interludes.

The buoyant Holy Shit contradicted its unfortunate name with a relatively tame set of reverb-soaked ’80s dream-pop. Much like Luna’s Dean Wareham, singer Matt Fishbeck’s voice was dry and low as he sang quietly into the mic. The band was backed by another female drummer – this time an Asian in a schoolgirl outfit.

In a further perpetuation of hipster stereotypes, before Grizzly Bear finally took the stage, there were as many people playing pool and drinking Red Stripe in the smoke-filled back room as there were on the venue floor.

It was a classic example of a night in the Silverlake music scene, where attendees are often more apt to get drunk and go through a pack of cigarettes than make the effort to absorb a new band.

But whether those in the audience were just there because they’d read indie hype machine Pitchfork Media’s laudatory review of Grizzly Bear’s album, “Yellow House,” or because the band’s music actually managed to persuade a few jaded concertgoers, the crowd emptied out of lung cancer central once the quartet began its set.

The group managed to sound as huge and cavernous as on record, with the volume of live guitars only adding a sheen of ferocity to their more epic numbers.

Lead singer Edward Droste explored the solar system with his lingering, searching melodies, offering wordless skyward tributes in the opening song. When the band harmonized, “cascading” would be the wrong word for it – their voices were a torrent, plunging into the mists of thundering drums and electric guitars.

This was singing like the Mississippi is a river, and songs like Niagara is a waterfall.

“Yellow House” is an album of subdued, quiet folk music with moments of noisy aggression, but live, Grizzly Bear was often a different animal.

The song “Little Brother,” dour on record, was granted new life as a sped-up jam, while “Knife” sounded every bit the surrealistic ghost doo-wop presented on the album version.

As the set drew on into the wee hours, “On a Knife, On a Spit” made for a flawless closer.

The Elliott Smith-like folk rumbler became a back-and-forth between Droste and singer/guitarist Daniel Rossen, finally staggering to a soft conclusion.

The highlight of the performance came in the middle of the set, when the band’s craggy folk style was juxtaposed with a new song that thrashed about loudly as their amps went to 11. For a few minutes, Grizzly Bear had everything ­– post-rock grandeur, Beach Boys-esque songcraft and the pummeling drive of noise. If this was any indication of the group’s direction, its next album is going to be very, very loud.

However, the band’s encore saw it slowing things down, playing tender acoustic versions of early material to the remaining fans.

And it was appreciated. Grizzly Bear managed to melt the frost that often permeates Los Angeles concerts, and one can only hope they get as good a reception elsewhere as they make their way up the coast and across the country. The crowd cheered warmly for the “Yellow House” material, and after one song, a fan yelled, “L.A. loves you!” For a band that was “driving to Bakersfield tonight,” it was praise both necessary and deserved.