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Concert Fri Sep 13 2013
Youth Lagoon Puts On a Show to Remember, Pure X a Show to Forget
Doing my homework before seeing opening band Pure X, a group from Austin, TX., would have clued me into what I was about to experience. For one thing, I would have found their Tumblr, Mellow Thrasher. I'm still debating whether or not that fully encompasses their "vibe." To start, not once did any of the four band members make eye contact with the audience, nor acknowledge that we were there. For an hour, we listened to the lead singer whine about something. (I'm not sure what, the filter on his mic was so thick I couldn't understand the words coming out of his mouth.) On top of that, his face was so constricted, the look of udder pain on my face undoubtedly rivaled his. The music was a bad marriage between the worst kind of emo and the most awkward kind of adult contemporary. Of their 2012 appearance at SXSW, Pitchfork tactfully wrote that Pure X was "adept at conjuring six-string clouds of lazy-day nothingness."
I was still traumatized when Youth Lagoon came on stage to save the day. But thankfully, Trevor Powers immediately connected with the audience and even called out some "bro" who urged him to chug his drink, getting a rise out of the crowd in solidarity against bro-dom. United we progressed, with Powers as our leader guiding us back to music sanity.
The vibe of the show was very much in line with the inspiration behind Youth Lagoon's sophomore album, Wondrous Bughouse. Powers refers to the music as an exploration of "the human psyche and where spiritual meets the physical world." The set was pretty awesome — a backdrop of multicolored waves and lighting that created a band of silhouetted shadows, setting the stage for a mysteriously seductive ambience. The change in energy was palpable and the audience grooved with the Youth Lagoon in a much more united front. The separation of band and audience was no longer, it was one group navigating various expressions of electronic pop music.
Rarely was there much, if any, pause between songs, with the band flowing from one crowd-pleaser to another, slightly favoring songs from their 2010 debut album The Year of Hibernation, with songs such as "17" and "Cannons," but the audience responded well to newcomers "Mute" and "Dropla."
Overall, Youth Lagoon put on a great show that showcased the bands balance of experimental electronic and pop sound. But I will never see Pure X again. Like, ever.
John Freeman / October 13, 2013 1:13 PM
whoever wrote this article must still be in highschool. LOL.