Last night I headed over to Irving Plaza to see one of my favorite NYC bands: Locksley. They are currently on tour with Rooney, so it was my last chance to see them until September or October. It was kind of impromptu that I ended up at the show, though, so I didn't have my camera with me (not that I wanted to try to fight my way through the shovey, squealy clumps of teenage girl Rooney fans to get to the front anyway).
The first band up was The Bridges, who were ok. The Alabama band is composed of 4 girls and a male drummer. I could tell that they're a relatively new band - their debut album came out relatively recently from the sounds of it - because they seemed a bit nervous and didn't really know how to work the crowd. While I think they show a lot of potential as a band, I have to say that they have a lot of work to do. The theme of my advice for them would be "unify." Parts of their songs were good, but their music a little segmented. By that I mean that for a lot of the songs, the parts didn't blend well together - the chorus sounded like it belonged to a different song than the verses. That's why I say "parts of their songs were good" because in some songs I'd really like the verses but not the chorus, or in another song I'd really like the bridge but not the verses, etc. And while they're all talented at their individual instruments, they didn't really interact much with each other and they lacked the energy necessary to be good openers (openers, in my opinion, have the responsibility of getting the audience's energy up and getting them psyched for the rest of the concert). There were also hints of country here and there (particularly in the vocals) that kind of annoyed me because I didn't think it fit quite right. And while I have to say that they looked a lot better than in the picture on the flyer that I was handed as I walked in - they're all very pretty - they could unify their look a little more too. Each of them seemed dressed from a different decade. I also didn't think they fit overall with Locksley and Rooney, who are both kind of retro-pop-rock.
Locksley was up next, and I have to say this was probably their best performance that I've seen. They're always high energy, but I think that touring with stars like Rooney has boosted their confidence (as well as their fan base, though unfortunately only in the 14-17 age group...). The most notable (and understandable) gain in confidence was in wee Jordan Laz-Hirsch, who is their new(ish) bass player and is lead singer Jesse's younger brother (he's not in the picture left, which is an older picture, my apologies). The last time I saw them was his first performance with them and he seemed a little nervous. Now he seemed much more at ease and confident. But they all seemed much more confident, pulling rockstar moves all over the place - leaping off of amps, spraying water everywhere, throwing their bodies all over the place and tossing things out into the audience. As much as the teenybopper crowd annoyed me, I have to say that the one good thing was how Locksley fed off their energy. I think the last time I heard that amount of screaming was when I myself was a teenybopper going to concerts like The Backstreet Boys. Ah, youth... But that screaming seemed to be very motivational for Locksley. The longer they played, the better they got and they seemed like they were having so much fun. The best part about it is that even though they're on their way to fame, it hasn't seemed to have gone to their heads yet (and I hope it never does). They were very sweet after their set, talking to people and signing autographs and taking photo after photo with teenage girl after teenage girl. They seem like very nice, down-to-earth guys.The nostalgic former teenybopper in me kind of regrets not staying for Rooney. I liked them when I was 17, when they first came out - before they were played on The OC... Not that I'm one of those people who doesn't want the artists I like to become popular. On the contrary. I just wish they had become popular with a slightly more... mature... audience - an 18 or 21+ audience for example. But alas, I was exhausted and not feeling so well, and my friend wanted to go home because he had to take the LSATs today, so my nostalgia lost that battle.
