Although I’m sure this will lose me some major indie credibility, I had never heard of Chief or Crystal Antlers before I went to see both bands perform at the free concert held Friday night by the Student Committee for the Arts. Nevertheless, the two local bands put on a very entertaining and musically solid show that ranks among some of the best I have seen in my short life.
There are few things in this world that are as cruel as having to wait in a standby line to get into a concert that has already started. Unfortunately, that was the exact circumstance I found myself in at 7 p.m. as I waited in the cold outside Kerckhoff Hall with a few of friends and heard Chief begin its set. Apparently, Kerckhoff Grand Salon was at capacity, though it looked half-empty to me. Chief sounded like a cross between the neo-hippie grooves of Fleet Foxes and the driving folk-country feel of The Eagles, with all four members of the band often creating four-part harmonies. The music was extremely relaxing and quite honestly the only thing that held me back from screaming at the security guard who wouldn’t let us into the show.
About three-quarters of the way into Chief’s set, the guard finally let us into the venue in time to see the band perform two final songs, both of which featured incredibly entertaining and intricate instrumental long-form breakdowns as their endings.
After Chief, Long Beach natives Crystal Antlers took the stage. The band was composed of a guitarist, an organist, a bassist-vocalist and two percussionists. The only way I can describe Crystal Antlers’ set is as some sort of hellishly beautiful combination of The Doors and Sonic Youth. The band’s blend of noise-rock and psychedelia conjured images of mosh pits on the muddy fields of Woodstock. The borderline punk sound of the band stood in stark contrast to the laid-back feel of Chief, as was evidenced by the shocked look of my friends to whom I had promised a relaxing night filled with soft and easy-going music.
The lead singer said the band was going to play a 45-minute set, but I can’t say how long it actually lasted, or how many songs were played. All I know is that for some immaculately glorious period of my life, my eardrums were privy to a cacophony of organ”“tinged sonic waves echoing off the high ceilings of Kerckhoff Grand Salon. For a few unparalleled moments, I lost myself in the noise around me and felt at peace with the world and myself, as the band jumped and danced around the stage, they too losing themselves in the emotion and energy of the music they were creating.
After the concert ended, my friends and I sat pensively in the deserted Ackerman Union food court for about an hour just trying to fathom what we had just experienced. The two bands could not have been more different, but somehow, the show worked. I still don’t know exactly what to think of the concert. I have since listened to a few of Crystal Antlers’ records, and they’re good, but nothing comes close to capturing the sound that I experienced that night Kerckhoff Grand Salon. I suppose that is the definition of a good concert: a moment of pure live music that can never be recreated, no matter how hard one tries. And by that logic, Friday night’s concert was a great one.