Weatherbox @ Saint Vitus w/ Dikembe & Deep Pockets (pics)
photos by Amanda Hatfield, words by Andrew Sacher
Weatherbox @ Saint Vitus – 7/27/14
Weatherbox returned this year with Flies In All Directions, their first full length since 2009’s The Cosmic Drama, and brought their tour with Dikembe in support of it to NYC last night (7/17) at Saint Vitus. Opening the show was local band Deep Pockets, who I hadn’t heard before going in, but who were solid and definitely fit the bill. They played a set of shouty punk with an animated singer who looked (and sometimes sounded) more than a little like Craig Finn on stage.
Dikembe was up next, playing a set of punky emo indebted to the genre’s ’90s era. They previewed a lot of material from their upcoming Tiny Engines LP, Mediumship, as well as playing older material (that a portion of the crowd up front knew all the words to), and a mostly-straightforward but sorta punked up cover of the PIxies’ “Where Is My Mind.”
Weatherbox’s set began on a high note with Flies In All Directions opener “Pagan Baby,” the punkiest song on the record, and that pretty much set the tone for all of what was to follow. Even on a softer song like “Dark All Night For Us,” the crowd was all fists raised, shouting at the top of their lungs. Weatherbox mostly stuck to the new album and other recent tracks, like “Big News” off their Sainthood Reps split and “Mountain” off their 2011 EP, and the new material is some of their most fleshed-out, diverse stuff yet. Main man Brian Warren casually threw in flashes of math rock guitar, parts of the set would have the focus on him in singer/songwriter mode, and other parts would have him ditching the mic entirely to let his backup singers take over. Once the roughly half hour set ended, the crowd practically begged for an encore (efforts were futile). I’m fairly certain no one there would have minded if the set was twice as long, but on the bright side, they left no time for a single dull moment.
More pictures from the show, below…
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Deep Pockets
Dikembe
Weatherbox
