Soft-poppers Twin Sister, Cleveland drone kings Emeralds, and heavy psych-pop trio Bear In Heaven took the stage at the Grog Shop for a surprisingly filled Monday night show. Twin Sister went on around ten, and definitely showed some bright talent, but their biggest obstacle was captivating the crowd…they never did. They go for this elegant pop sound which sounds beautiful, but it left many people thinking they were pretty boring. Emeralds went up next and destroyed the stage for 35+ minutes straight, starting off with “Genetic” and transitioning to other Does It Look Like I’m Here? tracks within the gorgeous mess. Bear In Heaven walked on stage last and slammed into Beast Rest Forth Mouth opener “Beast In Peace,” followed by “Ultimate Satisfaction.” They best part of their set was no doubt the mega-foggy epic “Dust Cloud,” where they proved that three men can be a tornado of noise under frontman Jon Philpot’s haunting voice. It was pretty nice to see them all smiling, with Philpot addressing the crowd about how fucking jawdropping Emeralds was, and after a long wait between songs saying, “Sorry, we’ve having fun!” That just about summed up the night, people were dancing and drinking to their oil-thick psychedelia, and it was all about having fun. Bear In Heaven are going to heading over to Europe for a ton of dates (check their MySpace), and Twin Sister will be touring the US with Memoryhouse. Hit the jump for some pretty cool photos!
P.S. I saw Emeralds a few weeks ago and captured a pretty good video of the first ten minutes of their set. Watch it here!
