By Darshun
March 14th 2014, The Echo, Los Angeles CA: Texas based post-rock band This Will Destroy You headlined the Echo in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake area last Friday March 14th, along with support act Silent Land Time Machine from Austin TX, for a show which sold out of its online pre-sale tickets roughly a few weeks before the night of the event. I had gotten fourth in line at about 6:30PM and finally at 8:30PM, they slowly injected the line of people for the show into the 350-capacity venue.
The opener Silent Land Time Machine started a bit after the scheduled time but played a short set. I had never heard of the ‘band’, or should I say the guy playing violin and looping himself live. The set was very minimalist since it was just one instrument and comprised of three songs. After the first song, Mr. Silent Land Time Machine informed the crowd that he was missing an effects pedal that would have enhanced the sound better, perhaps? Over the course of his set, the performance improved as he acclimatized to the audience and energy inside the venue. During the less than 20-minute set he played, a possibly inebriated fan threw money at the musician and told him that it’s raining money [Upon the end of the night, I noticed that the money was still on the stage]. Mr. SLTM’s set didn’t really move me in any way to inspire me to like his music. However, he was lucky enough to have a particularly large crowd to witness his set, which he may have benefitted from.
The San Marcos, Texas band This Will Destroy You came on a little after 10:30PM and began their set with “A Three Legged Horse” from their self-titled second album. Luckily the band had already set up their elaborate equipment and instruments on the stage. The entire set was post-rock bliss that included geometric, mostly black and white projections for the backdrop either produced by the Echo or by the band themselves. This quartet was armed with two guitars, bass, drums, what looked like a Rhoads piano, a keyboard, an antiquated tape player, and some other electronics. The band played song to song with applause in between and later in the set one of the guitarists gave a brief message regarding the tragedy that struck near their hometown in TX at SXSW. After the PSA, This Will Destroy You swiftly went into “Little Smoke,” which drove the crowd into a dirge of heaviness and the end of the song was a soft drone of keyboards and guitars fading into the silence. The set ended with a crowd favorite from their self-titled record called “Threads”, a moving piece with driving distorted bass, beautiful intertwining guitars and cathartic drums to bob your head to. This was the first time seeing This Will Destroy You and I thoroughly enjoyed their set of post-rock goodness.
Visit This Will Destroy You on the web:
ThisWillDestroyYou.net
facebook.com/ThisWillDestroyYou
Set List:
01. A Three Legged Workhorse
02. Black Dunes
03. Burial On The Presidio
04. Glass Realms
05. Communal Blood
06. Quiet
07. They Move On Tracks Of Never-Ending Light
08. Little Smoke
09. Threads