Review: No Age + Sun And The Wolf

There are times when you need reminding how much and why you loved a band, heck - even a genre, in the first place. And there are times when you need a really good kick-in-the-ass rock out dance session. Last night, we got both. 

When Sun And The Wolf came on, I was happy to note that the sound was rather good, which couldn't be said for my previous two visits to Privatclub. I was also surprised to find that SATW came across rather forceful and energetic. Unfortunately, after a few songs, I got bored again. It might be my well-documented short attention span or the lack of a charismatic front person, but they lost me after a couple of numbers and by the end I was exhausted from their guitar doodling. This I noticed when the DJ played a nice poppy tune afterwards and my brain got a well-deserved break.

No Age, on the other hand, had my full attention from the word go. This, however, was delayed by a live played intro of ambient sounds before the drum would kick in and eventually guitar-drum-rock-out-mayhem would take over. The crowd was not shy. And No Age were not holding back either. There was dancing, there was shouting, the band were telling jokes, pointing out people's taste in t-shirts, were laughing.

While musically, the duo delivered exactly what was expected of them, bar a couple of numbers with bass-guitar-combination, which broke up the set a bit, it was their persona that made the evening special. The music was great, the energy was fantastic, the dancing was fun. It was all spurred on by two smiling musicians on stage, who would not take themselves so darn serious, despite obviously having grown up somewhat since their humble beginnings as "the new indie punk thing" years ago. The tales they told, the smiles they gave - it was all that was needed for the audience to go wild with joy. Dance was their reward.

No Age thanked the audience by playing extra long, exhausting the club curfew. And nobody complained. Instead, there was the silent wish that we could do it all again tomorrow. A hot favourite in my top of the year list.

Senses overload

I went to White Trash Fast Food on Friday night to watch The Sun And The Wolf perform upstairs in the restaurant. I am not that big a WTFF fan, so usually you wouldn't see me wait for a table for over 1,5 hours in that place. But our friend has recently joined the band on bass, and we were looking forward to a fun night, eating burgers while watching the band.

Well, all I can say, after my bad experiences at the JEFF The Brotherhood show, this wasn't that much better. The place was over-packed, the waiting times silly, the pole dancer mediocre, the DJ okayish. For me personally, call me an old fart, this was alltogether too much. Everywhere you look in this place, you are being overloaded with moving images: be it the blinking picture of a dog, a band onstage, a big TV showing old films, the pole dancer in the window, the skimpily dressed waiters. You don't get a rest. 

It was a wild and fun night out, but this tourist trap is and will always be overrated. Truly.

BTW, while the classic rock that TSATW play is not necessarily my kind of thing, a few songs exceeded my expectations by far. Interesting. They are playing at Bassy soon; I may just go and give them another shot in a more appropriate setting.