Grizzly Bear at the Phoenix; Friday June 5, 2009

Grizzly Bear at the Phoenix; Friday June 5, 2009

'Vekatimest' is an album that stands out to me as far as releases go this year. It shows just how much a band has really grown without changing their style too drastically. "All We Ask" is a slow song that builds up to an incredibly catchy climax that repeats... "I Can't Get Out What Need To With You". I'm not really sure what it means but it's absolutely incredible. They however did not play this song, although I was so sure that they wood. However, there is a spectacular live bit of them performing it on the Black Cab Sessions, 3:39 is pretty life altering (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY4186cW10o).

Live, Grizzly Bear were pretty spotless. Their voices were as pretty as they were recorded and together, which is weird because one would think if you microphoned a band that they would sound like rubbish. I wished that they would step away from their mics and play something unplugged, because to me that's how this band sounds naturally. Bassist Chris Taylor's vocals were often synthed, which sounded ridiculously cheesy. These guys can sing, i'm not sure why they'd lather in it lousy sounding effects. This was especially noticable when they played "Knife" his bit is the "waa-ahh-owwe-owwe" laced thorughout the song, not so nice with a distortion pedal slapped on. "Knife" is one of my favourite Grizzly Bear songs, but I really didn't enjoy the live version of it. It felt slow and lingering, I think it was because I was so use to this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjy2P0MSVlo. Fast paced and dynamic.

Off of their 2006 album 'Yellow House' they also played "On A Neck, On A Spit" but oddly only the second half, which really threw me off. They played the "Each Day is Better With You" Part, only. The song really loses it's pizazz, because there's no build up. This wasn't to say that they didn't want to play slow songs, they played the slowest of the slow at this show thrown in the middle of their set, "Colorado" and "Little Brother" are prime examples off of 'Yellow House'.

The slowest song they played was absolutely lovely, which was "Service Bell". This song was intitally released on their first album 'Horn of Plenty' but they rereleased it with Leslie Feist singing on it for the 'Dark Was the Night' benefit compilation. Go figure, Feist came out and sang a bit. I never liked this song, but it's slow and short and the images are pretty, naturally she won me over. Feist also stayed out to sing the "waa-ohh-waa-waa-ooh" bit on their single "Two Weeks" which was absolutely pretty, although her vocals were understandably weaker than theirs. I'm assuming she didn't want to overpower the band in any way.

They closed with their cover of the Carole King written The Crystals recorded "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" http://hypem.com/#/search/grizzly%20bear%20he%20hit%20me/1/.