On Saturday night I headed down to 92Y Tribeca, an interesting artsy space that I had never even heard of until the Alaska in Winter show that I attended there. It seems to be owned by the YMCA and it's a cool multi-use art space, with a coffee shop and a bar and all sorts of fun stuff.
First up was
The Rural Alberta Advantage. As you can probably guess, they are Canadian. They're an interesting mix of singer-songwriter and dance music and they had a good energy, albeit a rather laid-back, unassuming Canadian one. Lead singer Paul Banwatt's voice reminds me somewhat of Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy.
The headlining act was
Alaska In Winter, AKA Brandon Bethancourt, who was rather ill during his performance and had to stop periodically to cough. I have to say I was very intrigued by his performance and the amount of work that must've gone into it. Every song has video in the background of himself playing just about every instrument (he refers to "the band" a lot, which always got a chuckle from the audience). And yes, he actually plays almost all of those instruments (except for the violin and trumpet, which he faked decently well but not quite well enough to fool me). He changes costumes with the video so that he always matches the video. He's very cute and he has a pretty good stage presence (which I can only assume would be better if he weren't sick). His music definitely had most of the audience shaking it by the end of the set. All in all, it was a very good show.
First up was The Rural Alberta Advantage. As you can probably guess, they are Canadian. They're an interesting mix of singer-songwriter and dance music and they had a good energy, albeit a rather laid-back, unassuming Canadian one. Lead singer Paul Banwatt's voice reminds me somewhat of Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy.
The headlining act was Alaska In Winter, AKA Brandon Bethancourt, who was rather ill during his performance and had to stop periodically to cough. I have to say I was very intrigued by his performance and the amount of work that must've gone into it. Every song has video in the background of himself playing just about every instrument (he refers to "the band" a lot, which always got a chuckle from the audience). And yes, he actually plays almost all of those instruments (except for the violin and trumpet, which he faked decently well but not quite well enough to fool me). He changes costumes with the video so that he always matches the video. He's very cute and he has a pretty good stage presence (which I can only assume would be better if he weren't sick). His music definitely had most of the audience shaking it by the end of the set. All in all, it was a very good show.
