I was extremely excited and sort of not that excited about this show for a long time. Looking forward to it because I hadn’t been to a show at the Blind Pig in probably a year and a half, and because I have been all about Brooklyn’s Bear in Heaven and Vancouver’s Japandroids for quite some time. But I wasn’t looking forward to it because Monday shows are difficult to recover from. And to make things worse, the show was in Ann Arbor, which, thanks to my recent move, was now just about an hour away.

But alas, I trudged along. Since we had another beautiful day, I headed out to Ann Arbor as soon as I could and made a few pit stops along State Street, finally finding a suitable hat for Coachella. I’ve learned the hard way that my thinning hair plus the hot desert sun does not equal happiness. I met Summer at Old Town for a cocktail before we headed over to the Pig around 9:30.

The crowd was a bit more sparse than I expected, but that often works to my favor. I think Bear in Heaven finally took the stage at about 10PM or so. I thought there were four Bears in Heaven, but on this night, there was only to be three. I ended up right in front of singer and bandleader Jon Philpot and his rather fortuitous mustache in all of its glory. I wasn’t sure if the group was going to pull off their psychadelic sound in a live setting, but they definitely surpassed my expectations. There seemed to be some sound issues in the beginning where the vocals didn’t come through very clearly but that was all straightened out about halfway through the set.

The band made their way through most of the tunes from Beast Rest Forth Mouth and the highlights for me were my favorite tunes of course, “Lovesick Teenagers” and the set closing “Casual Goodbye” (which are sort of the same song?), but the unexpected standout was “Deafening Love”. Because, at times, it was deafening. It was during this track that I realized how loud and intense this band could be. I guess it’s a pretty heavy song but for some reason I never really noticed. It was also during this song that I realized what a fantastic drummer the band has got in Joe Stickney. He owned that set in my opinion, especially during this track, with some of the craziest and intense drum fills I’ve seen in a while. Philpot and guitarist Adam Wills shined as well. Overall a great showing, especially when the sound cleared up. Unfortunately I wasn’t in the greatest of spots to capture Stickney at work, his long hair flying around like a true rock ‘n roll drummer, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The crowd exploded at the conclusion of the set for probably a solid 30-45 seconds, much to the surprise of the band who seemed so shocked at their warm reception that they sort of stood around not knowing how to respond. It was pretty nice to see, and they clearly deserved it. My advice on Bear in Heaven stock? Buy now, because it’s going up.

[photo rant]Now, can someone explain to me why every venue insists on poor lighting for opening acts? These were the only mediocre pics I could salvage from their set because we were almost in darkness. I don’t understand why they can’t just bring the lights up a little bit.[/photo rant]

Bear in Heaven – Lovesick Teenagers

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Next up was Japandroids. I was so pumped for this show because I knew it was going to be wild and I knew it was going to be loud, despite the group only having two members, guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse. I’d seen the two of them perform on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon a while back and it was then that I decided I was going to this show. I wanted to include the video so that you could see them in action but it seems to no longer be on the web. The other indicator that this was going to be a loud show was the massive amp setup they brought out which you can see in some of the pics below.

Then it began. From the first notes, the duo went bonkers and the crowd ate up every bit of it. It wasn’t until the third song or so that things really got out of hand. The band played crowd favorite “Wet Hair”, before which King mentioned that the band has played in Michigan once before, but never in Ann Arbor, and they didn’t play this song last time, and then all bets were off for the rest of the show. The small crowd that was there turned into an all out mosh pit, and me being the responsible person I am, dropped my lens cap and couldn’t even safely put my camera away. Luckily the lovely young lady next to me planted her feet and offered some protection until I was able to find the cap. Which was in stark response to the gal next to her who was one of the most pit instigators.

I’m not really sure what happened the rest of the show, but I know it was super loud and super fun. This was a real down and dirty rock show. Carles of Hipster Runoff would have undoubtedly had to say how authentic this group is. At one point, during which I forgot that it was actually a Monday night, Prowse commented that this had to be the wildest fucking Monday night crowd he’s ever seen.

The second to last song was the only one that was a bit slower than the rest at which point Prowse mentioned that he hates bringing down the mood when the energy is so high, but that they’ve played almost every other song they have, but he promised that they would close out with a rocker after that, which they surely did. But part of the beauty of this show was that since both bands don’t yet have extensive catalogues, the crowd knew/loved/memorized every song and responded accordingly, which was partly responsible for the crazy/insane/unreal amounts of energy coming from both the bands and the crowds. Then the lights came up, we all struggled to hear our friends speaking at normal volume levels, and were on our way. And I got to witness a pretty huge thunderstorm during my hour commute home but without actually being in the storm itself. All in all one of the better Monday nights I’ve had in a while.

Moral of the story: See this band if you get the chance.

Japandroids – Wet Hair

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