Last Thursday evening Minus the Bear was playing a show at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe AZ. My brother and myself are big Minus the Bear fans so we weren’t going to miss this show. They were touring with a band called Helio Sequence, a fellow Northwest band. I’d never heard of them but I hear a tune on their myspace page and was quite impressed. It was shaping up to be one heck of a show.

The opening band was pretty terrible. They had 3 acoustic guitar players, one of which sat down behind a piano, which would have been cool had he played a single note on the piano. As it stands I have no idea why the piano was up there or why he was sitting behind it. The third acoustic guitar player was obviously one of their dear friends and they didn’t have the heart to tell him they don’t need him anymore. They did a lot of folksy counter melodies, and it sound cool the first couple songs. But eventually they lost steam and their harmonies were not in key and the wheels started to come off. Also there was just so many harmonies all the time it got less interesting each song and just annoying, no space at all.

Then Helio Sequence stepped on stage. They consist of a drummer(Benjamin Weikel) who looks like he had to take a day of at Microsoft to be here and a very unassuming, understated lead singer/guitar player(Brandon Summers). Certainly not a pair you’d see on the street and think, musicians. They begin the first song as they did most all their songs, drummer coming in right on time with a synth track. Drummer is absolutely nails, dude has near perfect time (playing to a click is not easy) and he lays down just amazing rhythms. Benjamin used to be the drummer for Modest Mouse. Very unorthodox playing style, you can tell he is having a blast, I was having a blast just watching him play. Brandon has an amazing voice, reminds me a lot of John Lennon, especially when he does half yell/growl. He used a ton of reverb on his voice with some delay and at first I was hesitant that it was called for. But it really worked over the entire set. He’s an amazing song writer, vocalist, guitar player. I was blown away how good they sounded, I thought for sure there would be empty spots with just 2 guys up there, but I never got that sense. They completely rocked and it made me want to go buy all their music. To me that’s a successful show.

The same can’t be said for Minus the Bear, whom I love. Their mix was terrible first off. None of the cool guitar parts cut through, it was just a wall of mush. Their set lacked a story as well, meaning it didn’t take you on any journey. I just wish their was a little more unexpectedness to it, some pauses for us to catch our breath. But it was just fast fast fast, loud loud loud. I like fast and loud, but there has to be some dynamic. So I came in expecting to see Minus the Bear rock and nothing else, what I got was Helio Sequence stealing the show, making me a huge fan and Minus the Bear leaving me wanting.

Go buy their latest album Love and Distance, thank me later. Here’s a video for “Don’t Look Away” that Fred Armisen (SNL) directed for Helio Sequence.

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