The Neighbourhood - Biltmore Cabaret - Monday, February 25, 2013

I reviewed this show on behalf of Concert Addicts. My review is here. Jamie Taylor's wonderful photos are here. 

The Biltmore – that hole in the wall I secretly look forward to spending time in whenever I attend a show there. It’s not anything I can put my finger on with any degree of certainty, but maybe it’s that feeling about being a witness to something not a lot of other people in town are (according to the interweb, the Biltmore’s capacity maxes out at 362). For instance I saw Noah and the Whale there in 2011 and it was a really special show. On this particular visit, Monday, February 25, my focus was The Neighbourhood from California.

When the opener, a band called White Arrows, began, the majority of the 150 or so audience members who had up to that point been in all the side alcoves came onto the dance floor. White Arrows are a 5-piece who look to be in their early 20s with a keyboard/lead guitar/rhythm guitar/drums/bass set-up. The lead singer looks the part and has that nasal, quasi-whiny sound that the singer from Glasvegas also has and plays guitar. Their keyboardist has the nicer sounding voice and adds nice vocal harmonies while occasionally taking a lead.

Not a lot of audience interaction from White Arrows. They mostly stand there and play while kind of passively looking at what the other guys are up to. ‘Hey, guitar guy #2, you’re playing a drum. Alright.’ Drum solo starts the 6th song and it continues with a good beat. Some energetic dancing and whoops. And it ends rather abruptly. Abrupt like a power failure, except it wasn’t one. I thought they may have done it again later in the show. They also like timing chords to percussive elements.   

White Arrows’s set went from quarter past 9 until just before 10. They played about 9 and a half songs because I couldn’t figure out if what was between 8 and 9 was a really long exit, a really long intro, or its own instrumental. While it was going on, the band didn’t look like they quite knew how to end it, but then it did go into the final song. In general, I don’t know if the diction was lax or if there was an issue with the microphone, but I found if I understood one word every 30 seconds or so, I thought I was doing well. The crowd participated in general foot tapping and head bopping and were at least mildly enthusiastic throughout, right up to the final thank yous.

Style-wise, they tend towards the upbeat side of pop-rock. They said this was the second-to-last show of their tour with The Neighbourhood. While the music itself was absolutely listenable and playable (I have no idea about the lyrics), I would suggest they attend some gigs of different music genres (songs did begin to sound same-y by the end), rehearse some more, and just generally work on their polish. “Guitar guy #2” who I sat next to later was worried I was going to give White Arrows a bad review and this really isn’t. Steven, you guys have something here. If you were from BC, I’d think you were perfect for a “Band of the Month” slot on Victoria’s 91.3 The Zone. So let me call White Arrows a ‘work in progress’ and suspend any verdict of mine until you come back with top billing and I review you properly. Deal?

The Neighbourhood (my inner Anglophile is pleased, pleased, pleased by the spelling, considering they’re from the US*!) is also a 5-piece, comprising vocals/lead guitar/rhythm guitar/bass/drums and they also look like 20ish is their average age. I knew one song going in, was curious enough about them to want to hear more, and was gratified with liking everything I heard. They have a nice edge and a nice energy/vibe to them. I like the lyrics and the imagery – there’s introspection, there’s storytelling, there’s vocal strength, there’s attitude, there’s variety in sound (incl. vocal effects). They have an EP (I’m Sorry) already in circulation with a new release (Thank You) coming out in late April (the 23rd, I think). They are on their first visit to Canada and I think they were genuinely pleased with the response they got from this Vancouver audience.

I heard the word “buzz band” tossed around recently after the radio station I listen to had played Sweater Weather and after seeing The Neighbourhood live, there’s a reason for that. Jesse, the toqued and tattooed front-man, alone has a good measure of charisma, good eye contact and ‘conversation’ with the audience while he’s singing – a must-have for a non-instrument-playing front person, and he has a very good sense for what’s going on around him. Even with a walk that is part strut and part slink, he can melt into the background when it’s someone else’s turn front and centre for an instrumental feature and while he’s front and centre, the rest of the band is sort of tooling around in the back. There’s no competition, I get a more synergistic sense from this group.

Vocally very consistent – the relaxed and staccato phrasing with the smoothness of the voice sounds just as good live as it does on the recording, which is one of the reasons the vocal effect microphone adds dimension to the overall sound. Tonally, I have to admit that until I saw them live I had no idea if the singer was male or female (in the vein of the surprised reaction many people had when they found out the singer for Alabama Shakes was female) – I obviously hadn’t paid close attention to Sweater Weather’s lyrics yet – I think it’s absolutely a ‘come hither/let’s get closer’ seduction song and I was laughing at myself a little for not figuring it out sooner.

The set was 40 minutes long not including a one-song encore with a total of 11 songs performed. For the 8th and 9th song, lyrics weren’t sounding so clear and because their music isn’t that well known (yet) and the songs weren’t introduced by name (neither were the members of the band), my usual tactic of lyric search only got me so far. Setlist.fm had a setlist for The Neighbourhood’s show in Portland, OR from February 22/13 and they list Let It Go, Female Robbery, Afraid, Baby Came Home, I Remember, Say My Name, What Do You Want From Me, Wires, A Little Death, Sweater Weather. Let’s assume they used the same list for Vancouver – I definitely heard Female Robbery, Baby Came Home, A Little Death, Say My Name, Sweater Weather (a slightly sped-up, amped-up version) with the audience singing part of the chorus, with something that sounded like it could be called Leave It Tonight as the encore, maybe.

To wrap things up, this band has appeal and the songs are definitely radio-friendly, especially with alt-rock/modern rock stations. I would not be surprised at bigger venues when the new CD is released, a good chunk of it the 250+ members of this Vancouver audience already had the chance to hear, and they liked it all.

* Nice way to sidestep the spelling issue of neighbourhood vs neighborhood for the URL of the website: www.thenbhd.com. Clever.