Islands – Logan Square Auditorium – 6.2.08

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Rock n roll bitches. That’s how it goes down. Great show last night from Islands, with just some great rocking out, and guest rappers, and a bunch of girls dancing on stage during several songs. Well done. Islands are former members of Unicorns reformed, from Canada, and they are out touring in support of their new album “Arm’s Way”, which is great. It is certainly one of the better straight ahead rock records so far this year. Their performance last night did not disappoint one bit either and they were in fine form dishing out the rock.

I initially caught their performance earlier in the day at the Apple Store here on Michigan Ave. and it was a very good stripped down acoustic performance of a lot of the songs on the new album. While Nick continuously tried to banter with the crowd, the crowd wasn’t really having it, and though he apologized that their music just didn’t work acoustically, I thought it actually worked really well, and I was pretty impressed.

So the evening show began with opener Despot, a rapper throwin down rhymes with an America shirt and an iPod. It was pretty good actually, and he was pretty funny and the crowd certainly took a shine to him. He even came up to guest rap on one of the songs during the Islands’ set as well.

After he had finished, Islands came out, and dove into their new album and promptly began the rock. I am not really familiar with Unicorns or prior Islands, so I can’t say how much of the set was out of either catalog, but they definitely hit some great songs that were not on the new album. They also did hit most of the album and it sounded pretty awesome live, though they did not hit their Who homage of “In the Rushes”, which I thought would have sounded cool live (especially since we will never hear the Who do it). The band has a great energy on stage and they work very well together, with only a few moments where the rock was not melting faces off. The crowd was crazy into it also, like I said above, with girls jumping on stage and dancing with the band during a few songs including “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby”. Though it is still indie rock, so to speak, I think these guys are one of the better acts bringing straight up rock n roll to the indie crowd nowadays, interspersed with some chilled out and more dance-y moments, and their show definitely shows that as well. I would really recommend checking them out on their current tour if you get a chance, and pick up their album also, it is really solid.

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Islands – Life In Jail – From Arm’s Way