mardi 5 Déc 2006, 1h54m
This past weekend I had the immense pleasssure to witness the lovely bands devotchka and My Brightest Diamond in concert.
The concert and I got off on the wrong foot. Even though we bought tickets online we had to wait around in the bar section of the venue which was blasting eighties hair metal. After a fairly long wait, which we discovered was a ploy to make it seem like they weren't starting the concert about an hour and a half later than the posted time. We waited for another twenty minutes for My Brightest Diamond to open the show. Okay, enough whining. To the issue at hand.
I had heard a few of My Brightest Diamond songs prior to the concert. Just a couple of tunes I picked up off the net. I remember thinking that the front woman had superb control over her voice, something that blew me away during the concert. Shara Worden is an amazing and eclectic woman from small town Michigan. She grew up around the influence of gospel, R&B, and everything else. And, I think you can really hear that in her vocal style and delivery. A warm, round, and deeply comforting voice. The kind of voice you wish your mother had. In all honesty I wasn't blown away by the rest of the band, though that may be because of Shara's draw. I felt that they were purely an accompaniment to Worden, still producing beautiful sounds but not at the level of Worden's voice.
Dragonfly is a lush and delicate song. Watch the VIDEO for Dragonfly and here's the song available for DL.
Also, a more unsettling song called We Were Sparkling.
HERE
Devotchka is a Nadsat word for "girl". If you have read A Clockwork Orange you'll remember Nadsat as being a constructed slang blending Russian and English with other influences. I think that Nadsat would have been a much less pretty but more accurate name for the band as they mainly draw their influences from Russian music and indie rock. Also detectable are hints of mariachi music and gypsy jangles . The band was great fun to watch, probably the most drunken revelry and bounciness I've seen in ages. Though having a band name that means "girl" is no excuse to write every song about lost love and the pursuit of woman. Although, I found that I wasn't annoyed by the motif. Oh, and they played a fucking theremin. Which is pretty much the most unusual instrument.
Though…don't take my word for it.
Here's some tunes.
How It Ends