Saturday, March 22, 2008

Locksley @ Mercury Lounge

Despite having recently contracted the plague, I headed out to Mercury Lounge Thursday night to see Locksley. They were the first to play, which I have to say surprises me because the last time I saw them it seemed like they had just as many fans in the audience as The Bravery did. Plus I had never heard of any of the other bands playing that night. But seeing as I'm sick as a dog, I guess I was glad they were up first. And while I wanted to stay for the other bands, I just didn't have the energy. One of the other bands canceled anyway.

Thursday night was Locksley's first performance with new bass player Jordan Laz-Hirsch (see left), who is the younger brother of lead singer Jesse Laz-Hirsch. Aaawwww... I thought he was very cute until his older brother announced that he was jail bate (and apparently skipping school to perform with them?), which I'm guessing Jordan didn't appreciate too much, haha. While Jordan seemed a little nervous - it was his first performance with them after all - he fit well with the band and he did a good job. There were some very adorable brotherly love moments and Jesse seemed really happy to have his little brother on stage with him.

In fact, everyone seemed pretty happy just to be up on stage performing. This was Locksley's first performance in about four months. I guess they've been busy finding a new bass player and working on new songs. They played some new material from an album that should come out later this year, after they tour the US this spring/summer as the opener for Rooney (I believe they mentioned something about a show in New York in early June). The new stuff sounded great and I'm very excited for that album to come out.

One other thing I noticed was that it seemed like Jesse Laz-Hirsch and Kai Kennedy (lead guitar - left) were occasionally switching roles a bit. Kai - who sadly was not wearing the white patent leather shoes that he wore at both of the other performances I've been to - sang lead on a few songs, which was cool because I have a massive crush on him. And it's just nice to see bands where everyone gets to share the spotlight. Even drummer Sam Bair got to enjoy the spotlight a bit being front and center on Mercury Lounge's small stage. I was glad to actually be able to see him for once because at a lot of shows the drummer gets shoved way back on the stage, out of the light.

All in all it was a great show, albeit a rather short one. They probably played for 35-40 minutes I would estimate. Because it was so much fun, I wanted them to play more. The fact that it felt so short is actually a good thing I guess - it meant I was never bored. Here are a few more pictures:

Drummer Sam Bair

Brotherly love... aaawwww...

Lead Guitar player Kai Kennedy

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, I found out that the "Garage Band" EP they were selling at the Mercury Lounge is not just a rerelease of their first album "Safely from the City". It is about six or so songs from there, redone/remastered/something touched up, and a few other songs that hadn't released. So I feel like a tool for not buying it there (especially since it isn't for sale online).

- Mike

Stephanie said...

Thanks for the concert review! I'm really upset that I missed that show since I guess it was kind in a sense a formal debut of Jordan as their new bass player? (Not 100%) on that, but I did see them with Rooney and they were amazing. I had been a fan since I first heard about them I think three years back from some high school friends.