FreeFest review: Sleigh Bells had more air guitarists per capita than everyone else
I had a theory going into the Sleigh Bells show Saturday at the dance tent. I’d just never heard them at their intended volume: a couple of notches louder than a battleship cannon.
When I saw 10 feet tall speakers, and eight comically large Marshall amps stacked high -- which prompted one concertgoer to ask a friend, “Do you think those are real?” -- I knew this would be the right place to test out my hypothesis.
Some have categorized the duo of Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss as “noise pop,” which is my second favorite sub-sub-sub-genre represented at V-fest (behind only Neon Indian’s classification as “chill wave”…How rad is that?). On paper, they read like a train-wreck.
Lo-fi distortion that, more often than not, drowns out the vocals. Lyrics that, when they can be deciphered, are repetitive, often childish, and sometimes irrelevant. Lots of “oooohhing” and “aaaahhing.” Single guitar licks repeated to buoy entire songs, which rarely last longer than 3 minutes.
And yet eight wrongs apparently do make a right.
The hip-hop-style thunder-beats cooked up by Miller in the studio are just out and out burners. The raucous guitar, turned up to 11 in concert, is ear-splitting.
But then in perfect contrast to Miller’s violent racket comes Krauss’s angelic crooning, moaning and giggling. Sexy? Maybe, if she hadn’t been singing about high school boyfriends and braces.
The group’s set lasted a trim 32 minutes, exactly the length of their one-and-only studio release, this past May’s "Treats." After opening with “Tell ‘Em,” the duo put the album on shuffle the rest of the way with the addition of B-side “Holly,” which fit right in.
Interestingly enough, some of the album’s catchiest tracks “Kids” and “Rill Rill” (featuring a sample from Funkadelic’s “Can You Get To That”) were overshadowed in concert, but with what was clearly the highest per capita amount of audience air guitarists, it didn’t seem to matter.
Fan interaction was limited, which is expected considering the band was racing through 10 songs in only a half hour. “If you know the words, there’s not a lot of them, you should sing along,” Krauss told the crowd during "A/B machines." The lyrics to the entire song consist of: “Got my A machines on the table, got my B machines in the drawer.”
In closing out with the riotous “Crown On the Ground,” Krauss, Burger King crown on her head, crowd-surfed while soliciting vocal help from audience members and losing her mic in the process.
After apologizing for losing the mic, Krauss softly walked off the stage with Miller. The only quiet thing the two did all night.
Set list:
Tell ‘Em
Infinity Guitars
A/B Machines
Kids
Riot Rhythm
Run the Heart
Holly
Rill Rill
Straight As
Crown On the Ground
- Patrick Gavin
Patrick Gavin is a frequent contributor to Midnight Sun. He's a high school teacher in Baltimore. He once turned town an interview with the lead singer of Train, as any person with taste would have done.
Photo: Sleigh Bells Myspace
Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
