Fiery Furnaces & We Are Scientists at First Avenue This Evening
(aka i suck at posting pictures to my blog)
I found my abandoned review... this is like the web version of what a crumpled peice of paper looks like....
It was a Brooklyn night at First Avenue on Friday. The Fiery Furnaces, transplants there from Chicago's Oak Park suburb along with natives We Are Scientists.
Coming into Friday I was expecting a little more from We Are Scientists, considering the buzz they have generated in the past couple of months. My theory was that since a large part of their album left me looking for more, that their live show would have to be where it was at. Mustacioed bassist Chris Cain seemed to be the instigator, and was the chatty one. (And frankly, the annoying one). He and lead singer Keith Murray had an ongoing banter back and forth. Typically I'd be all for the dialog, but there was something about Cain's manner, his way of making jokes, jokes that didn't really interest the Scientists attentive crowd, including instigating this little Minneapolis vs. St. Paul beef (pitting the residents of the two cities against each other) that didn't really work and left me feeling a rush to get to the next set. I don't think that was the sentiment of the crowd though. They seemed to be very into it, singing and rocking out along with the band. They are a musically solid group, Murray's a dependable guitarist and a fine vocalist a but a lot of the songs to me, sort-of droned into each other, only a few of them seeimg to set them apart from the others.
You get an almost completely different sound when you listen to The Fiery Furnaces live than if you check out their albums. In my case especially, I was missing the keyboards. They have this great multi-dimensional, garage rock thing going with some bluesy fuzz-guitar in there for good measure. Awash in fuzzy, almost psychedelic guitars and without the the sound of that whirring organ. That's going to be my major/only disagreement about the show that I saw. This would be my first time seeing them live. I haven't always been a fan, that's for sure. A couple summers ago, when Blueberry Boat came out I wasn't impressed at all. But something eventually got to me about Eleanor and Matt Friedberger's clever quirky lyrics, and that all the different styles over different layers.
