Bon Savants : Live

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/bonsavantsjanuary26.jpg" alt=" " />Bon Savants were showing off their new material on a relaxed and chill Saturday night....

  As they work on their sophomore follow-up to 2006’s excellent Post-Rock Defends the Nation (QRO review), the Boston band has been playing one-off dates here and there across the northeast, with the latest January 26th at Brooklyn’s Union Hall (QRO venue review).  While a set-list dominated by new numbers meant some of the Nation classics were missed, the Bon Savants are definitely keeping up and building upon their indie-rock cool.

Even though they were using the concert to road test their new stuff, the Bon Savants were smart enough to open with two Nation numbers (singer/guitarist/frontman Thom Moran is a freakin’ rocket scientist when not a-rockin’, after all…).  “Why This Could Never Work Between Us” opened things on a slow boil, getting expansive in its noise during the chorus, but retaining the Bon Savants cool in verse.  Audience revved, “Go to the Sun” hit them with more of a straightforward, driving, growing cool.

If there’s a word to describe the Bon Savants sound, it’s definitely ‘cool’.  Maybe it’s just the laid-back confidence in Moran’s voice (or the pale leisure suits he favors on stage), but even the beats and guitars show off a proud and unworried style.  On “Tidal Wave”, the first new number of the night, the band was able to speed things up even more, with some staccato march/dance drumming out of drummer Andrew Dole, without ever feeling hurried between the moon and the ocean.  Nation finisher “I Am the Atom Bomb” was a clear crowd favorite, and the brighter piece carried the audience into three more new numbers.  The disco-cool “Get Ready” and laid-back “Songs For $” both had neat effects, but at times felt a little limited.  Ironically, it was the piece they wrote on their way down the I-95, “Trouble At the Door” which seemed the most fleshed-out; the up-tempo garage-rock jangle was really fun and relaxed, yet you couldn’t say the Bon Savants weren’t into it (especially guitarist Craig Hendrix’s sweet guitar-wail at the end).

Despite being Pats fans trying out new material in Giants country, the Bon Savants were definitely relaxed on stage, more so than in their last Big Apple performance, during CMJ (QRO CMJ coverage).  This could drive them a bit towards distraction: two-thirds of the way through “Go to the Sun”, Moran stopped and asked if your magazine reporter was there, saying he just realized he’d forgotten to put him on the list (but getting the mid-song shout-out is really cooler than just getting your name on the list, so, once again, Bon Savants = cool…).  More detrimentally, the band messed up twice during “Tip of Our Tongues”, an already rather shambling Nation number; the first err, Moran said, “Everyone’s allowed one fuck-up”, the second, “We’re not even going to pretend on this one.”  But the band brought things back home with a strong one-two punch to finish things off: Nation classic “Between the Moon and the Ocean” was in tip-top form, while new piece “Dreams Kick” had a speedy cool effect, the jaunty number with a social cry.

Bon Savants playing “Between the Moon and the Ocean” live @ Union Hall, Brooklyn, NY:

The focus on new material meant that some of the top Post-Rock Defends the Nation tracks were left out, including opener “What We Need”, “Mass Ave. and Broadway”, and “Post-Rock Defends the Nation”.  While the wistful cool of “Mass Ave.” might have been too Beantown, and Moran admitted that, if you’re trying out new material, you gotta skip the last album’s title track, the constantly building, driving cool of “What We Need” would have fit right in at Union Hall, with its hints of local Brooklyn boys making big, The National.  But what wasn’t missing was the Bon Savants style – élan if you will, whether or new numbers or old.  Already too cool for Boston and winning any of its Music Awards (stupid Click 5…), the Bon Savants look set to take their atomic rocket out of the nation, across the waves and the ocean, to the moon, the sun, and beyond.

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Concert Reviews
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