Owl City

I know this story is rather late but I had the good fortune to find a cool person who had some great pictures of the show (unlike Vampire Weekend, not even the local paper). Make sure to visit her Flickr page too. Collette is quite talented and if she was good to me, my friends from around the world can return the favor by giving her some traffic.

Meanwhile, my opinion of Owl City was definitely improved by the live show. I primarily went for free as a volunteer to attend with a friend (Nathalie), her daughter (Ingrid) and her daughter’s friend (I rudely forgot); quite the experience too, it was the daughter’s first concert! You know I tutored Ingrid on the essentials, namely how she must wear the concert shirt to school the following day; it’s the law of Rock & Roll to do this especially at her (middle school) age. “Guess where I was while you were at home with your parents watching Lost? I was rockin’ out! (raspberry noise).” Childish, I know. Certainly trying to train the poor kid into acting like a Starbellied Sneetch. At least the clothing has improved. Those old three-quarter sleeves didn’t age well.

Back to the concert…

Seeing Owl City live raised Adam Young’s stock for me (the band is really just one guy like New Radicals, Ladyhawke, the Normal or Saint Vincent). Several sources (publications, co-workers) have ripped on Owl City for being a knock-off The Postal Service which I have no idea about. However, I still like Garbage despite they’re copying of Curve; there’s room for both and I think the more popular one can assist the original into expanding both fan bases. When I bought Ocean Eyes last Summer, my expectations were modest. The free tune “Fireflies” was impressive and the price was right, under 10 bucks. I figured the rest would be some nice Synth-Pop yet not as memorable as contemporaries Van She, Cut///Copy, Goldfrapp or Ladytron. This prediction proved to be correct. “Dental Care” and “The Bird and the Worm” are clever while the remainder didn’t grab my attention or to quote another friend/music aficionado, Maud, “I’m pretty over Owl City.” Maybe Owl City’s enthusiasm could’ve swayed Maud. I know it did for me, namely when I see how much conviction the artists have on stage; ever since I saw Underworld in 1988 perform for less than 30 people in Milwaukee.

Stubb’s was pretty packed with kids and teenagers too. I hadn’t seen a show this skewed toward the under 18 crowd since JET but I think Dresden Dolls would be more accurate. Nice to see younger fans attending something more cerebral than what the SCLM proclaims they enjoy (Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift and flavor-of-the-month Hip Hop/Rap). The intermittent rain certainly didn’t dampen their collective spirit, maybe the parents who were in tow. This concert also had the longest, most constant line to the merchandise booth I have witnessed. Not to say this was a bad thing. I feel the opposite. Traditional music sales continue to decline, record labels only excel at getting in the way, and radio can’t be counted on to help. Thus, the shirts and posters are what pay the bills.

Enough editorializing. My point is that Owl City deserves more respect than I feel it receives in light of the live show.

Opening for Owl City were a couple of new acts I plan to investigate further. The bigger one was Lights, a fellow Synth-Pop act from Canada. Founder/Singer Valerie Poxleitner was thrilled to be in Austin because her WoW guild was in the audience (Blizzard has a WoW support center here). She lost more points with me when she whipped out her keytar which is an instrument only Devo can get away with. Okay, maybe Beck due to his thing for irony. The very first band was Paper Route which I thought was goofy in an endearing way. They had the misfortune of being the guinea pigs for the sound people to figure out what were the appropriate levels. Paper Route reminded me of Spiraling, Nerf Herder and a touch of Bowling for Soup in their material.