The Cambridge Room at HOB played host to a sold out show headlined by The Temper Trap and opened by The Kissaway Trail on Monday night. I was mainly concerned with seeing Kissaway Trail, but didn’t quite realize that Temper Trap would draw quite the superfan kind of crowd that ended up showing up. Both sets were great, the crowd was certainly there for Temper Trap, and sung along and cheered loudly to intros of almost all songs, but I really dug the Kissaway Trail set and personally enjoyed it even more, and I think they even won over some of the crowd along the way.
The Kissaway Trail is a band from Denmark who have just started playing their first appearances here recently, starting with NX35 in Denton, then SXSW and now this tour with The Temper Trap. Their album “Sleep Mountain” will be released next week on Tuesday. Their sound has drawn comparisons to Arcade Fire, and they certainly have a tip of the cap to Arcade Fire in their sound, but they also manage to make it their own and take it in their own direction. The album is really well done and I have been digging on it ever since I first heard it.
There were six of them on stage, including one guy who pretty much only played the tambourine the whole time and danced around the stage. I don’t think he did anything else except jump in on some of the shouting vocals. They mixed in several of the songs off of their new album including “New Year”, “Beat Your Heartbeat” and “New Lipstick” (which killed and was great). They also mixed in a few songs I had not heard before, not sure whether they were from their prior album or even newer songs. They threw in their cover of “Philadelphia” which was great and closed out the set with their single “SDP”.
The band kept it loud and kept the energy and strength of the songs from their record going throughout the set and really showed what the buzz is about on these guys. They have some killer material and really delivered it this night. It was pretty awesome to hear them tear through so many of these songs I have come to love on the album live. They were very tight and impressive with every song they played, there was not a down moment in there. They jumped from shouts to noise to carefully orchestrated bridges building in most songs to great, epic, wall of sound moments. After the final wall of sound moment and extended rock outro on “SDP” the crowd erupted as they had certainly been won over by that point, even to the point I thought they may try to demand an encore from an opener, but not this night unfortunately. I would heavily recommend checking these guys out when they make their way around to your town and this band solidified their place as one of my new favorite discoveries of 2010, and I only hope they will come back sooner rather than later.
After Kissaway Trail, The Temper Trap came on to excessive jubilation from the crowd. I wasn’t sure what all the buzz was about and why they had such a dedicated fan base at this show, but apparently they were on the ’500 Days of Summer’ soundtrack, which would explain why I recognized one of the songs of their set, and would also explain their huge popularity. They were pretty good and tore through a bunch of upbeat rock songs. The singer had a very interesting and unique high pitched delivery, and the energy went up a notch when these guys hit the stage. The bass played was going crazy, the crowd was going nuts, and everyone was massively into this show. I have to admit I have not heard their album so I didn’t really know any of the songs (aside from the one I mentioned above), but they kept the crowd enthused and pumped throughout their set and their style of music really lent the peeps to some singing along and some moving. They really resonated with the crowd, and they seem to have a sound that could really break big. It is kind of a more emo/pop leaning Kings of Leon (their new stuff) kind of sound, for lack of a better description. Listener friendly rock with some choice riffs and singalong lyrics that can get the kids all fired up.
This was a great show to see and great to see both bands at the top of their game. Really loved finally catching Kissaway Trail, I had this one circled on the calendar for quite a while, and it was cool to check out Temper Trap and see them really play a great show for a crowd that really was into it. Either one of these bands would be great to see if they hit up your locale, and I would really recommend checking out Kissaway Trail when they come by. I should have an album review up for them sometime shortly as well. In the meantime, check out all of the photos I took from the show below.
The Kissaway Trail – SDP – From Sleep Mountain (CD, MP3)
