Monday, March 2, 2009
The Spin The Spin: Tristen & The Privates at The 5 Spot/KinderCastle at Mercy Lounge
Posted by The Spin on Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 10:12 AM
More photos: Tristen w/The Privates & The Young; KinderCastle.
Our plan for Saturday evening was to catch some local rock 'n' roll on both sides of the river--an order that proved to be quite tall given our perilous weather conditions. But, rain or shine, The Spin is prepared to hustle when hustlin' needs doing. We arrived at The 5 Spot to find a few leftover pool-shooters and stragglers from Stopgap's weekly bluegrass show. Just happy to see the place was still standing after last weekend's infamous wedding party fiasco, we took our place amongst the slowly pooling crowd as Knoxville's The Young kicked shit off.
The three-piece delivered their polished, ethereal pop tunes to an initially meager and rather listless crowd. Though The Young were certainly tight, their material reminded us a bit of Muse--sans the virtuosity--and none of their songs picked up quite enough to wow us.
The moment Tristen mounted the stage with her one-time-only backing band--none other than hardworking powerpopsters The Privates--we knew the first stop on our Saturday night escapade had not been in vain. Tristen's captivating but typically sparse folk tunes sounded surprisingly powerful thanks to an injection of brash, jangly pop know-how from The Privates. Fellow songstress Larissa Maestro doubled Tristen's vocals, making her striking melodies just audible enough against Rollum Haas' enormous drumming and Ryan Norris' perfectly saccharine key parts. Songs like "Doomsday" and "Eager for Your Love" were refreshingly epic (and totally natural) with the volume boost.
It was already after 11 when we slipped quietly out the back exit of The 5 Spot with our entourage in order to catch as much KinderCastle as we could. After navigating the treacherous streets along our tried and true East-to-West shortcut, we piled out of the Spinmobile and nearly busted our collective ass mounting the steps of Mercy Lounge. Ass intact, we found our way inside during what we gathered was KinderCastle's second or third song.
We initially wedged ourselves in stage right between a cutout of a brontosaurus and a seething crowd of painfully nubile youngsters. Mercy's stage had barely enough room for Kindercastle's ambitious 10-member lineup--not enough room, in fact. KC's vivacious string section was adrift on an annex of sorts, adding their sweetly grandiose parts to the 'Castle's already full arrangements. We have to admit: KinderCastle undoubtedly put forth one of the most remarkably tight sets we've seen from a local act in ages, and their funkier, disco-beat dance numbers had us cutting as much of a rug as our hipster cred sensibilities would allow. From the full house, it was clear folks had made use of Mercy's liberal guest list for the evening, and after sweating out our vodka-sodas and rubbing an elbow or two, we headed back east for the conclusion of our debaucherous evening amongst a slightly more seasoned crowd.
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