This past Tuesday Best Coast played to a sold out crowd at the Knitting Factory’s new home in Brooklyn. This was her second of three New York City appearances with in a week, and I’m really happy that I was able to get tickets in time.
Before I get to Best Coast’s performance I would like to give the Knitting Factory some respect for making their new Brooklyn home a wonderful place to see live music. It’s not a huge space, even smaller than their former Tribeca home, and is actually pretty intimate . The staff was friendly, and even included some familiar faces from the former location. The layout of the venue is logically set up, which is not saying a whole but it seems that is something difficult to do when it comes to venues in this city. Drinks are reasonably priced, and for the person who loves Lost and Best Coast they got to watch Lost in the bar and then head to the back room to see Best Coast kill it. Pretty much a perfect Tuesday. Thanks Knitting Factory…I look forward to coming back it was a great first experience.
While klk and Leah were catching Lost in the bar I went into the back room, and got to catch the Bitters set. Ben Cook is someone who I respect quite a bit. He is an extremely talented musician, and was responsible for one of my favorite singles (Young Governor’s Virgina Creeper) and EP’s (The Bitter’s Wooden Glove) of last year. The Bitters’ sound has changed from that initial EP, but Ben, Aerin Fogel, and their live band were really a pleasure to watch. Aerin is a great front woman, and Ben’s talent as a guitarist just shines. I’m looking forward to hearing their debut LP on Mexican Summer, but deep in side I know that it won’t live up to the expectations that Wooden Glove has already set.
Next up was Best Coast. On this tour Bethany and Bobb have Ali Koehler of Vivian Girls fame backing them up. Last time I saw Best Coast was back during CMJ when they made an appearance at the Group Tightener Records showcase at Monster Island. At that point Best Coast was just using a drum machine, and Bethany and Bobb were banging out the songs (for a taste of that show check out my videos here), but I feel like with the addition of Ali on drums the band is really coming into their own and the new songs are sounding better than I could have imagined.
For those familiar with Best Coasts’ California fuzz laden recorded pop the live show is something much different, and in my opinion even more special. When you see Best Coast live there are two things that you notice right away…Bethany’s voice doesn’t stand out on the recordings as much as it should. Her voice is beautiful, and when you hear her live it almost makes me feel that the recordings are doing her an injustice. The second thing you notice is how essential Bobb Bruno is to the band. Most people just talk about Bethany when they refer to this band (i was guilty of this in the past too), but watching Bobb play is interesting and essential to the band, and live if you keep one of your eyes on him you realize that really quickly.
This show makes me more than excited to hear Best Coast’s to be released full length. They are already one of my favorite live bands of 2010 (and 2009 for that matter), and the live show just makes me dream of how good their first album can be. At this point I’m thinking that Best Coast is going to have what I’m refering to as Dum Dum Girls syndrome…where they released a whole bunch of great, yet fuzzed out, recordings….and then when the full length album comes out it totally blows people away. I hope so. At this point Best Coast seem to dominate hits on the Great Pumpkin being by far the most popular band I post about. On that note I present these to you Best Coast live at the Knitting Factory Brooklyn:
[mp3] Best Coast- “Something In The Way”
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