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Concert Review: Small Black, Wrongbar, May 31st

Posted on
10 Jun 2013
by
lauren

photo 

This was a tough choice. Young Galaxy were playing the same time, the same night, at Lee’s Palace, and I had to choose which one to go too. In the end it went to Small Black, whose new album I just fell in love with (equally with Young Galaxy might I add, Wrongbar happens to be very close to my house). I’m sure whichever show I had picked, I would’ve walked away satisfied, and Small Black did not disappoint.

I was suprised by the lack of people there, the first time I saw Small Black was at the same venue and they were opening for Washed Out. They had just put out a split together and Small Black came on stage during Washed Out’s set and they jammed together. It was a great sweaty dance party packed to the brim. This time around, there were no more than 100 people (if that) and scattered throughout. I arrived just as Small Black hit the stage. After finding their footing with the vocals (he was barely audible throughout the first half of the song, and it took a couple songs to get it just right), slowly but surely, the dance party started brewing. The more they delved into their set list, and perhaps the more intoxicated people became, the more they danced. By the end of the set, I pulled a complete girl move “I need to go to the front!” and proceeded to dance like no one was watching.

The synth and reverb heavy music gave me the feeling of being in a hip New York club in the height of the neon sign 80’s. Josh Kolenik’s vocals melded into the music and became its own instrument, all  flowing into a hazy, synth and fog machine dream sequence. He hit on the best tracks from the new album Limits of Desire, Free at Dawn, the opening track sounds like the song you could hear in the climax of a John Hughes film, while Breathless, a song as far as I remember about his friend who was hit by a car while cycling in New York, is a full on club dance hit.

PrevPreviousConcert Review: Outsides, June 8, Chicago Ribfest
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