Last Friday, ushering in this week’s appropriately arctic weather, Polar Bear Club took the stage at Strange Matter for an early show that also featured Citizen, Diamond Youth, and Sainthood Reps.
Last Friday, ushering in this week’s appropriately arctic weather, Polar Bear Club took the stage at Strange Matter for an early show that also featured Citizen, Diamond Youth, and Sainthood Reps.
Upstate NY’s Polar Bear Club hit Richmond at the tail end of two months’ non-stop touring: from early October until early November, the band served as the warm-up act for Taking Back Sunday before striking out on their own in support of their just-released Death Chorus. The time on the road didn’t seem to have left the guys any worse for the wear–vocalist Jimmy Stadt spent most of the band’s stage time leaping back and forth, gesticulating all over the map, and generally giving the performance everything he had. The rest of the band wasn’t too far behind.
PBC’s new album, their fourth proper full-length, sees the band finding the most solid footing of their career thus far, all the while remaining true to their essential sound. These shifts weren’t lost on their live show, where tight, mature arrangements and tour-defying energy kept the performance chugging along at a solid clip. Divided equally between new tracks and old favorites, Polar Bear Club’s set started off strong and only got stronger by the end of the night.
The rest of the show was rounded out by similarly regional heavy-hitters, starting off with Long Island’s Sainthood Reps. Also on the road with a new record under their belts, the group presented an enjoyable, if somewhat schizophrenic, set, powering through numbers by turns grungy, dreamy, and back again. Strains reminiscent of middle-period Built to Spill juxtaposed with Superfuzz-era Mudhoney made for entertaining listening, but left one with the feeling that this band has yet to stumble upon a cohesive aesthetic.
Diamond Youth (from Baltimore, MD) appeared next, taking the stage with a full-frontal skate punk assault that didn’t let up once during the 25-minute set. Sprinkling newer material throughout a set that pulled heavily from the group’s three previous EPs, Diamond Youth kept up the pace with a steady stream of summer-inflected alt rock that hinted at good-times influences as diverse as Weezer and the Offspring. The older songs came across as more pulled-together, but the newer material suggested new, darker directions for the band’s future, which we’re definitely eager to get an earful of once it comes.
Next up was Citizen out of Toledo, Ohio, who took advantage of a crowd that had been well warmed up by the preceding acts. Gallivanting onstage to a guitar-driven fuzz onslaught, the gang proceeded with a high-energy set list that suggested these guys know exactly where they stand in the succession of heart-on-your-sleeve greats. Pump-your-fist choruses and sludgy breakdowns mingled with toe-tapping melodies to keep the audience singing along through the set.
Although the concert was fairly brief–just over three hours from start to finish–it by no means left anyone feeling they’d been short-changed. This is exactly the sort of out-of-town tour Richmond needs to see more often.
