The One AM Radio and Ola Podrida
Tangier
April 13, 2007
Bars are noisy. I go to college; I get it. But somebody should tell this to the booking agent at Tangier, a restaurant/bar/concert space that on Friday played host to the quiet sounds of The One AM Radio and Ola Podrida.
With its damped-down lighting and intimate space, Tangier would be the perfect place to see such a stripped-down show ““ if the older, wealthier crowd would make like a bunch of hipsters at a Sufjan Stevens concert and shut up already.
The musicians performed on a small, Largo-like stage, barely elevated or removed from the crowd. Unless you were sitting up front directly by the speaker, the constant babble of the back half of the room (and the adjacent main bar just through a curtain-closed doorway) was impossible to ignore.
Ola Podrida, like Elton John and Timbaland, was a two-man crew on Friday. Backed by a drummer, singer/songwriter David Wingo strummed and sang with the weight of the world on his shoulders and his heart on a flannel sleeve. He didn’t have much stage presence, but credit to him for performing undaunted over the crowd’s clinking drinks.
Live, Wingo’s voice is even more weary and rough-sanded than it is on record. It’s hard for one man to be affecting in Los Angeles, but he gave it his best. Wingo has the voice and flashes of the talent ““ if he can just learn to win over crowds, he’ll likely be moving on to bigger (and quieter) venues.
The One AM Radio opened with the crowd doing backing vocals for the band, which at least cut down on the chatting. The show marked the end of the group’s national tour. Little has changed since seeing frontman Hrishikesh Hirway and his band perform at The Echo over a month ago. In fact, he may have actually been wearing the same navy polo. But Hirway’s songs have always been meticulous, and it’s nice to see them loosened up and untied ““ even a little bit ““ live.
The band started out with the old stuff, only playing a few songs from recent album “This Too Will Past” during the short set. The crowd finally quieted down to hear the band’s atmospheric, electronica-flecked folk.
While the main event always gets a wider berth in Los Angeles, Hirway earned it ““ like Wingo, he’s got a hell of a voice, but his songs dress in more intriguing clothes.
During “Lest I Forget,” his nearly ambient electric guitar was filtered through a delay pedal ““ meaning he had to strum a second early, offbeat, in order to release the chord at the right moment.
“In the Time We’ve Got,” as on record, failed to explode live; let the drummer play a fill! At any moment the song threatened to soar like Radiohead’s “Let Down,” but never took flight.
A pair of songs from 2004’s excellent “A Name Writ in Water” was a highlight of the set, with “What You Gave Away” leading into “Buried Below.” “Buried Below,” perhaps The One AM Radio’s best song, was made better by an unexpected a capella break on the chorus, as the band chanted “So tired” under Hirway’s “Running is the one thing that / you have always known just how to do.”
A few songs more and the night ended. Being too poor to buy a T-shirt (much less another drink), I headed out and hoped next time the bands would get to play somewhere quieter.