Review by Darshun
May 23rd 2014, Silverlake Lounge, Los Angeles CA: San Francisco space rockers Sidewave played an LA show last Friday at the Silverlake Lounge with hometown rockers Hidden Amongst Us, Tulsa’s Jesse Aycock Band and local support acts The Black Lantern and Mason Prophet, and our writer Darshun was on-site to capture the action for us. Read his review below.
It was a long night indeed to wait for the main acts of the evening, and it began with folk group Mason Prophet wherein the singer sort of reminded me of the frontman from the English band Elbow. He played electric and acoustic guitar and the latter part of the set featured the next act, Jesse Aycock on acoustic. Mason Prophet played roughly a half-hour set of folky crooning.
Next was Jesse Aycock on acoustic guitar and he looked a cross between John Frusciante and Weird “Al” Yankovic. His vocal range, however, was impressive and sort of comical — reminiscent of a high pitched Stevie Nicks. Another half an hour set of crooning similar in style to the previous act.
Finally, the third set of the evening had heavy elements of rock ‘n’ roll from The Black Lantern. It was a standard set up of guitar, bass, female vocals, and drums. The guitarist had a huge pedal board with a wide selection of effects to choose from and an amp switch leading to two different cabs with amp heads. For the first song or two, the guitars were inaudible probably due to the effects chain but later picked up when the set progressed. The bassist also had a medium-sized pedal board of his own. The drums were pretty strong through out the set. My only qualm with The Black Lantern was that the female vocalist was constantly belting out through the set at what I can imagine to be the top of her lungs, but the dynamics were lacking and it seemed as if she was going to lose her breath.
Following that was Hidden Amongst Us, a Los Angeles based alternative rock band. I missed a previous opportunity to see this band at the Viper Room a while back with Aeges and Mossbreaker, if I recall correctly. A similar set up of musicians as The Black Lantern: guitar, bass, vocals and drums. It was standard hard rock similar to Mötley Crüe but without the glam.
Finally at midnight, the time had arrived when Sidewave hit the stage. The sound guy wanted to delay their start of their set but it was already too late in the evening to make any more commotion. So, the band kicked in with one of their newest songs from their upcoming split with San Diego band Anakin. This was Sidewave’s first show as a live quartet and it was jaw-dropping. The set featured mostly songs from their most recent release “Big Time”. Sidewave’s brand of heavy shoegaze was pleasing to the ear as their detuned guitars soothed this savage beast. The last song of the evening was lyrically recognizable to a couple of my friends as a cover of Air’s “Playground Love” off the Virgin Suicides soundtrack. Based on this first ever set by this incarnation of Sidewave, I will definitely look forward to seeing this band live again, and would recommend them to fans of bands like Failure and Hum.
Sidewave links:
facebook.com/Sidewave.Music
soundcloud.com/Sidewave
Sidewave.net
Silverlake Lounge links:
TheSilverlakeLounge.ticketfly.com
facebook.com/SliverlakeLounge
twitter.com/SilverlakeLnge
instagram.com/SliverlakeLounge