Hooves on the Turf

Download “Don’t Haunt This Place“ | I went to Pianos camera-less last night with the intention of being “off duty” but here I am, posting a few re-colored cellphone pictures and a summary. It was The Loom’s last residency show at the venue (new material’s sounding great and showing signs of a maturing band); they had invited Rural Alberta Advantage to play with them, which, as it turns out, would make it the first US show for the Canadian band. I’ve never seen Pianos that packed on a Tuesday night. Even when great bands are playing, sometimes it’s just disappointingly empty, but there was no room to move last night. RAA’s frontmant Nils Edenloff looked visibly surprised as his band took stage, saying, “Is this some kind of improv group pulling a prank on us?” He thanked The Loom about a hundred times for asking them to play, and kept repeating how grateful he was for the “warm reception” in the US. Story continues…

Not only was the place packed, but at least the first two rows knew all the lyrics to RAA songs. There was one girl who yelled out that it was her friend’s 25th birthday and that the birthday girl, also present at the show, was a huge fan. She added, “She’s from Poland! She’s a Communist!”, at which point Nils stopped short alarmingly and refrained from delcaring any political allegiance, saying emphatically, “We do want to come back to America”. They were catching a flight back in about 4 hours after their set, but they will return on Feb 6 for a show at Union Hall with some band called These United States (about whom I know absolutely nothing–but I hear they’re promising).

To use points of reference I’m familiar with, Nils’ voice sounds somewhere in between AA Bondy and Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel), but the music’s quite different from both. There were several songs inspired by Nils’ own hometown(ish), including a pilgrimage site of a town upon which surrounding hills collapsed and fell (once upon a time!) and another about a group of kids who planned to make a 5-hour-long bike-ride during winter from one town to another, both of which kind of had the Neutral-Milk-Hotel-ish quality of storytelling, but the similarities stop there. The other two members, who said they were happy that Nils didn’t require them to wear uniforms anymore, have cheerfully hyper personalities on stage, moving from one percussive instrument to the other, dancing, and singing along. Once done, they walked into the crowd and sang a wonderful good night song unamplified–everything sounds so much better unamplified!

Oh, and for the 101st time, thanks to The Loom.  They’re playing Bell House on Feb 12 as part of the “BAM: Sounds Like Brooklyn” program.

Update: Video of the unamplified “Good Night” from the Pianos show (via A Rightly Timed Pause)