SURFER BLOOD/TRAIL OF DEAD - Music Hall of Williamsburg, NY - 13th May 2011

Having seen, or rather heard, ‘Surfer Blood’ from a line behind a food truck in Austin, TX at SXSW, I was keen to hear and perhaps see a little more of them. As the band took the stage, I was thinking, these guys look about 16 years old. Isn't this an over 18s show?

The band have cited, ‘Modest Mouse’, ‘Pavement’ and, ‘Dinosaur Jr.’ as influences and are probably too young to remember, ‘The Smiths’, but the vocals of front man, John Paul Pitts draws distinct comparisons to, ‘Morrissey’. The band released debut album, ‘Astro Coast’ in early 2010 and have been touring pretty much nonstop since then. The sound of the album is not amazing, but to be fair, this is very much due to the limited budget the band had...basically recording the album in a bedroom.

Despite having to start over on their 1st song, ‘Floating Vibes’, due to some cable issues, lead, Pitts made light of the situation stating that their music career was done and this would be the last show ever. The drumbeat was solid and loud and the vocals instantly struck me as, Morrissey, or, ‘Housemartins’, Paul Healy. The opener was followed by, ‘Twin Peaks’ which was a little more on the poppy side. Perhaps even a little bit, ‘Weezer’.

The bands first new track of the evening was poetic and soft with a hard line message – “Now I'm alone like Salmon Rushdie”. No idea what the song was called, but it was good. JP is charismatic beyond his tender years on stage and struts around like a ballroom dancer with his guitar saddled like he's going to shoot a target (in most cases, bass player, Kevin Williams).

‘Harmonix’ was more along the lines of a, ‘Phoenix’ or, ‘Passion Pit’ sound and a slight diversion from the norm for, ‘Surfer Blood’. While the second new track, 'Miranda' was more rockin' and very mod. This one a story of a bad break up where the injured party “can’t let go”.

‘Fast Jabroni’ from the album followed and then, Pitts self confessed favourite song to play live, 'Take it easy'. This track seems like it belongs in a cowboy movie or even, 'Bonanza' (damn I’m old). The front man got a little carried away on this one and joined the crowd for a spell. Surfer Blood certainly seem to have fun on stage and I do like their satirical humour.

Catholic Pagans starts with Tom playing a mandolin like, Spanish guitar riff on lead. With the chorus line of “I don't wanna be no catholic pagan”, this is so 'Morrissey' it's unreal. This is fast becoming my favourite track from the band. An instrumental in, ‘Neighbour Riffs’ follows before we are hit with, ‘Swim’ which is undoubtedly the bands most successful track to date. A little more in the ballad theme, the crowd truly appreciated this one. Reminds me of some older, ‘Manic Street Preachers’ tunes.

The band finished up with, ‘Anchorage’ where to this point, the quiet and unassuming lead guitar, ‘Tom Fekete’ wrecks (more like bludgeons) his brand new guitar to finish.  Clearly he lost his mind at the close. This band have a way to go, but it was an impressive performance from the young quartet and I do like their live sound. Rating 7/10

Set List
Floating Vibes

Twin Peaks
Unknown title

Harmonix

Mirnada
Fast Jabroni

Take it Easy

Catholic Pagans

Neighbour Riffs

Swim
Anchorage

A little sub line about headline act, ‘And You Will Know Us as the Trail of Dead’ (from this point forward to be known as ‘Trail of Dead’) were much anticipated, so I stuck around to see what all the fuss was about. Excuse my ignorance, but I had never heard of this band from Austin, who have been in the business since 1994. It’s sometimes difficult to get in to a band that you don't know and have heard nothing of (which is my status on, 'Trail of Dead'). Despite lead singer, Conrad Keely having a face that you wouldn't get tired of slapping, it didn't take long to appreciate the musical attributes of ‘Trail of Dead’.

Good jamming out from the outset, drummer, Jamie Miller was excellent and the band sounded super tight. Really liked, ‘Will You Smile Again?’ which has a ‘Queens of the Stone Age’ like baseline and a chorus of “Remember all the bad dreams, not far from reality”. Despite, Feely not having a hugely distinctive voice, his general delivery of clever lyrics is profound.

The band switched drummer and lead guitar, before then switching new drummer and lead vocals, highlighting the diversity of this group. Their debut album was in 1998 and they flitted back and forth between the old and new. Some of the older stuff was almost like INXS.

There were some high octane rock tunes going on and the pit was going radio rental (mental) with one girl on the balcony moshing her head back and forth for several minutes. I seriously thought either her head was going to fall off or she was going to hurtle over the balcony.

When second guy jumped on stage to prance/mosh around with the band, it was time to call it a night/early morning for me and I headed for the hills of home. I had however seen enough by this point to know that I need to go and find out a little more about ‘Trail of Dead’.