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Contest Wed Nov 03 2010
Contest: Frightened Rabbit @ House Of Blues 11/4
When Frightened Rabbit first introduced themselves with debut album Liver! Lung! FR!, they were easily confused with other indie-rock trios that also harked from Glasgow, Scotland or who also fronted real brother team-ups. Now two albums and two extra band members later, they can't be mistaken for anything other than a group dedicated to wearing their hearts — and slightly damaged livers — on their sleeves.
That's the best thing about Frightened Rabbit: an ability to capture dramatic crescendos and aching, heartbroken lyrics without surrendering the rugged masculinity that comes with tangled beards and swigs of straight whiskey. And anybody who's ever gone through a breakup or ached (in any sense of the word), will fall in undeniable love with the band's personal accounts of what it means to feel too much, all at once. Now touring off their latest album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, the band has expanded from the weeping ballads on Midnight Organ Fight to more experimentation with sound. Shoegaze guitars and driving percussion under tracks like "Swim Until You Can't See Land" sort of make you want to stomp, jump, gallop — anything to release the song's pulsing energy.
Since I've seen the band twice here in Chicago (once at Bottom Lounge, then at last summer's Lollapalooza), I can say with confidence that Frightened Rabbit's distinct brand of raw, confessional folk-rock is best enjoyed live. For all that listeners already feel the urgency in tracks like "The Modern Leper" and "Fast Blood," frontman Scott Hutchinson stretches that vulnerability to its limit onstage, in between gulps of PBR, of course.
The band plays tomorrow night at House Of Blues along with Plants and Animals and Bad Veins. GA Tickets are $18.50 (adv)/ $20.50 (day of show). Doors open at 7pm. Thanks to the kind folks at Live Nation, we have two pairs of tickets to give away to the show! Just email us at contests@gapersblock.com with the subject "Frightened Rabbit" and you'll be heading to the show with a friend in tow. We have our winners! Congrats to Jon and Julie!
Ali / November 3, 2010 1:40 PM
Kind folks at Live Nation? Snicker, snicker.