Photos: Gomez and Blind Pilot at The Fillmore
Gomez’s 2009 release, A New Tide, scored the highest chart debut in the band’s 13-year history. So when the Brits scheduled two nights at The Fillmore here in San Francisco (with Portland folkies Blind Pilot), we definitely thought it was worth checking out.
Review, photos and MP3s after the jump…
Gomez
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The first time I ever heard Gomez was in my brother’s apartment shortly after the release of Liquid Skin. The tune “Rosalita,” with its sparse, playful guitar and raspy vocals, immediately caught my attention. However, I quickly found out that categorizing the rest of their sound in the same vein was impossible. Gomez are shape-shifters who present endless songwriting variety from multiple influences.
In fact, seeing them live helps shed some light. Not only do all five members write tunes, but three of them share lead vocal duties. Even the crowd itself appeared to be a mishmash of age ranges and styles, highlighting wide appeal of their various sounds.
Where do I fit in? Personally, I admit I favor the earlier albums. That being said, A New Tide presents its share of rockers that make for a great live performance. Personal highlights included Ben Ottewell’s slide guitar play and Olly Peacock’s drumming (I mean come on, that drumset is a spectacle in and of itself). I will say that Ian Ball’s vocals could have been turned up a tad, but overall, Gomez was at the top of their high-energy game.
Blind Pilot
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Portland’s Blind Pilot started the night with a comforting, tranquil acoustic sound built from a variety of folk instrumentation. For touring purposes, the two-piece plays with four additional members, which helps bring their recent studio recording, 3 Rounds and a Sound, to its live potential.
My favorite tune was the set finale, “We Are the Tide” which utilizes a driving floor tom rhythm as its backbone – interestingly enough this track is not on their recent release, but you can watch a snippet of it here. Fans of Calexico should check out their set at this year’s Outside Lands Festival.
MP3:
Gomez – “Airstream Driver”Blind Pilot – “Go On, Say It”
Were you there? Let us know what you thought in the comments section.
Multi-talented, mult-faceted, hard to pin down – I had that feeling every time Gomez played on the radio or frequently on NPR’s “All Songs Considered.” THAT was Gomez (’Shot-shot’)? THAT was Gomez (”Girlsshapedlovdrug’) or is THAT Gomez (”Revolutionary Kind”) Indie Rocker? Brit-Pop? Psychedelic? WHAT? That’s been the rap against this talented band. Too many faces. Turns out I like all of them. Like the reviewer says, seeing them live on Friday at the Fillmore, in all of their guises, it all made sense Ottwell is the nominal leader in that he’s center stage and most of the ‘technical’ guitar falls to him (and he has that wonderful voice), but the same can be said of Ian Ball – the guitar/keyboardist or guitar/key/gadget-ist Tom Gray. Each brings their own style and each suceeds. Gomez even made a joke of their many faces by playing each other’s instruments and even trading places on the stage. The set was largely crowd pleasing, up-tempo stuff starting off with “Shot-shot”. The set was extremely tight, very exacting work, even when songs were stretched for live play. The concert was better than I hoped for (and they didn’t even play my favorite song).
I have been to many a Gomez show and this performance was all about the rocking out. Every song was amped up and any and all instruments were fair game. “Shot-shot” is always an excellent song to start off a Gomez show and this version was no exception. Surprisingly, it was this specific concert that led to my appreciation of all three lead vocals, although, I am a die-hard Ben fan. It is apparent they are skilled, versatile musicians who rocked out/played hard for their almost two-hour set. I had a few newbs with me and they were blown away by the performance. Once again, though, there was no “Flavours” to be heard…