Feature Articles

The Redwalls, The Zutons, and Keane

J-Sin joins Keane, The Redwalls, and The Zutons for a blissful evening of pop-rock at Washington, DC's 9:30 Club. He shares his experience with hopes that you too with try to catch these great bands live or otherwise.

The day started as a fine day but turned stressful as my day job worked its vicious way into my veins and arteries attempting to pump pure evil throughout my body. But I shook it off and anticipated the fun that the evening promised. I had already called The Redwalls tour manager and secured my guest pass + one for this evening's show. Soon it came time for me to make the trek up to the District and I hopped into my car to drive to the Metro. I was meeting my wife at her place of work near Union Station and then we'd drive from there to the 9:30 Club.

As I rode up to DC on the Metro, I felt annoyed by two young 20-something sisters who bantered back and forth. "I am NOT driving on my birthday, I'm getting wasted" one blathered. "I can't wait to get a German Shepherd", the other barfed and then added, "eww, do you see that creepy guy listening in to our conversation-what a total freak!" I only wished that they were referring to me instead of the nice gentleman in the business attire who looked as if he was currently fantasizing stabbing motions towards both of their chest plates.

Finally I arrived and quickly walked over to meet my wife. The show was near! Good music was awaiting! We got our stuff in gear and drove through the busy Chinatown streets into the more slummy part of DC-which can happen literally in a block-towards the 9:30 Club. We past Howard University Hospital and turned into the parking lot. Like a puff of smoke, my ten dollars went towards parking-hardly a complaint was uttered since after all, we were getting into a sold out show for free.

Admittedly our approach to the will-call office to claim our two tickets was wrought with a bit of anxiety that something would have fouled up. I show my ID and we're handed two non-Ticketmaster tickets. I hear in my head screams of "Goooooaaaaaalll" like some maniacal Hispanic color commenter who can't disguise who he's secretly rooting for during one of the World Cup games. We shivered and waited in the cold doing the typical crowd-watching game. Listening in on two older women try to bargain their way into backstage as they clutched their cigarettes close to their faces that screeched too much make-up and years of nicotine addiction, we both muttered about how numb our faces were getting. Soon after the doors opened-we only had to wait in line for about twenty minutes-and we made our way into the club.

We staked our claim to the left of the stage on the balcony area-great position to see all of the bands play. After listening to the house DJ spin everything from the Scissor Sisters to Gomez, we were by far ready to hear our benefactors, The Redwalls. Out step four extremely young looking lads who look as if they were playing hooky from their mid-terms, launching into some outrageous loud garage rock. Instantly their pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles influences are made quite apparent and continue throughout their short set. One of the most bothering things about seeing opening bands at the 9:30 Club is that they typically have no stage to perform on-instead they have to maneuver as graciously as rockers can in a small space no larger than most people's dining rooms. Their two part harmonies work wonders and their song about the FCC-to which their singer proclaimed a specific disdain citing some odd radio performance in which they dropped some cuss word bomb a couple of times-was thankfully not full of the seven word magic that other artists have previously done. As they were from Chicago, this would be the only "American" band that we'd see tonight, but oddly their influences were overtly British. Interesting I don't remember seeing a drummer play as hard as this guy does-he easily loses a drumstick each song with one flying several feet backwards hitting the dark curtain backdrop.

Off goes The Redwalls and the stage hands and sound guys begin to set up for the middle slot-The Zutons. A guy that was a dead ringer for Adrien Brody sifts through the microphones ensuring that the audience would hear every note and every crisp sizzle of cymbals. Now I remember listening to a brief 30-second clip of the band on iTunes and not being very impressed. I sighed and resigned myself to a good 45-minute set of anticipating the headliner Keane's performance. Fortunately I couldn't have been more off track. Out steps a young lady wielding a shiny saxophone that tosses her high heels aside and prepares to bare foot it the rest of the evening. Her other band mates join her-a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer. I oddly look at the way the timbales are set up near the drums thinking it impossible for the drummer to play them-I turn out to be right but have to wait for the last song to finally find out. The Zutons rip through a genius set of art rock meshed with progressive jams and garage rock bellows. The drummer's dynamics were superb and his use of cowbell and clave combine well with his almost pneumatic velocity and precision. The crowd swells with the intense energy as the band leads in clap parts and ignites everyone with their four and five part harmonies. Outstanding I think to myself, grinning like a junkie at a methadone clinic. Not only is the band a surprise but they inspire one to go find a bunch of people and jam out. Their stage presence was not just intense but magnified the anticipation for each song's part-the saxophonist skanked like a true ska band player would and readied the crowd with her tooting of not just her horn but all of ours. The band's dynamic performance was augmented by the lead guitarist-a dead ringer for Howard Stern's earlier years but boasted a mustache of pure '70's porn bliss-slapping around some tambourine. Then the last song came with the main singer and rhythm guitarist pulling out what looked like a child's musical toy; some odd 12-key keyboard that you blew air through resulting in an almost Middle Eastern sound. And then he launched into the timbales and we were treated to a percussion delight and a total jam-fest resulted. This enigmatic band would surely sell quite a few CDs as they wrapped the audience around their collective fingers and drew them tight.

Sadly, The Zutons left the stage but not before they gained dozens and perhaps hundreds of new zealous fans. As quickly as they left so on came Adrien Brody and his farmhands to reconfigure the stage for the main act. A fellow next to me and our evening's companions insisted on tying his t-shirt that bore the name "Keane" on the front to the balcony's fence through each act. A French woman and man stood behind us, drunkenly slurring their Romantic language's slang amid a torrid fury of cigar and cigarettes, probably uttering under their breath about "stupid Americans". People seemingly all around me were text messaging people and taking photos with their cellphones, the latter being interesting considering the glaring sign on the main door that screamed about no audio or visual recording devices being allowed in the club-of course we weren't searched at the door either for weapons or drugs, I suppose that doesn't surprise me given the VH1 nature of the show. Soon the stage hands were done setting up the band's gear and the lighting rigs. The lights dim.

The echoing haunts of the band's intro tune come whisking from the massive speaker units to each of my ears. That's the funny thing about shows Ashlee Simpson era, a lot of stuff is already pre-sequenced and it gives off this distaste that some find compels them to stay home and listen to the CD instead. Well I didn't let that stop me, after all Keane's bass player and piano player are one in the same. Maybe I thought to myself, they just didn't want to screw with good band chemistry by enlisting a bass player for tours-only and opt for a Mac G4 instead (that shined with a Keane screensaver before the show got under way). Regardless I watched with envy as the band poured their heart and soul forth via their catchy soft-rock pop tunes. Even the frat boys who looked about one beer away from a true date rape crime (with one another mind you) were singing along, clutching each other with tearful displays of emotion, boosting beer after beer cheering on the band with the guts and glory of knowing that tomorrow they will all have to beer bong away this overt sense of togetherness and touching endearment that they shared with one another. Most everyone in the audience was obviously here for Keane and went into fits over each song, thrusting themselves closer to the stage and using their cellphones as not just the illegal recording devices but as some sort of New Age lighter, waving them back and forth to the harmonious overtones of blissful melodies that Keane exuded. In fact, one of our companions said just that, these are now the days of the cellphone-as-lighter. Lame, I think to myself, if you can't hurt your finger by wagging a flame back and forth, you shouldn't be doing any of that nonsense at all.

Singer Tom Chaplin clutched the mike stand like the audience clutched their heart with trustworthy tenderness and an honesty that frankly is devoid in today's bling-bling pop charts. Pianist Tim Rice-Oxey plays with a fierce assault on the keys, turning his melodic rhythms into some frantic display of pure understanding of what note goes with what emotion. The band smiled and chit-chated with the audience off and on. Sure a certainly different atmosphere than both of the previous bands who seemed to be opposing forces now as I reflect than a building crescendo. But Keane wisely chose their tour mates, both of whom would surely keep audiences interested and helping to expose two bands to a whole new generation of fans. Generation is the keyword here as audience members consisted of college age kids who've turned to Keane instead of Dave Mathews and Guster these days all the way to the 40 and 50-something's fathers who've brought their underage daughters and their friends to the show. Other than the age quotient the diversity in the crowd stopped at white and Asian with barely another splattering of color (or as they'd say "colour") but that's what one should expect from a VH1 crowd-not that it really means more than a casual observation anyways but could be telling of record sales with some certainty. The vital essence of the show ended with a three-song encore and Keane ushered in some new tracks for the crowd to lavish and salivate over. As we left the club, we with exhausted bodies and minds, we wearily leaped into our vehicles for the long trek home and the impending showers to not rid us of the moment but rather the moment's smells, namely sweat and cigarettes. No doubt that sense of an enjoyable evening from start to finish will last quite a few showers.
Related Links:

Keane Keane on Smother.Net
The Redwalls
The Zutons
The 9:30 Club