Tuesday, July 13, 2004

You Think You Know Them

Saturday night I had the chance to finally see Cause & Effect live after about a decade of wanting to, and it was an interesting experience. The band put on a good show, and it was obvious why they were signed to a major label back when electronic pop got some exposure from major labels (which it is again, after years of neglect).
I got there, after finding an amazingly close parking spot, as Subimage were finishing their set. Chris, Subimage's singer/songwriter, did some great dancing and did as well as I've ever seen an opening band do in getting the crowd involved. I was impressed, and picked up their album after the show. It's a great album, and they had a real massive sound on stage, so they are well worth checking out live.
Cause & Effect did a lengthy set, and played most of their recent release, The Sunrise EP which is a return to form after their miserable guitary "Innermoststation" album from the late 90's. The band looked fit, and keyboardist Keith was wearing a Halou shirt, and since Halou are from San Francisco and have worked with C&E I assume their were in the crowd somewhere. Rob was a great front man, and I appreciated his attempts at getting the crowd to dance, but his guitar was way too loud. I've noticed this problem at many an electronic show, where the guitars are mixed way too loud. It's not the bands fault, but when your synths are providing a minimum of four instruments at a given time, it seems odd that the guitar would be louder than all of them. Hard to pick one highlight from the show, but I really loved the ballad-y "Stay" off "The Sunrise" EP, and the contemporary re-working of "You Think You Know Her" was great. It's just a shame they lost so much of the crowd to the time of night by the end of their set. We all get older I guess...

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