On Saturday night, me and my crew found ourselves at a sold-out Yeasayer show at the Fillmore with Sleigh Bells opening, both bands fresh off their sets at Coachella. At one point during the show, Chris Keating from the headliners remarked that while he found Coachella “cool and all,” he was way more pumped to be in San Francisco because the Paris Hilton sightings at the festival bugged him out. And we were definitely treated to a solid showing from the band after some of the banter cooled off, with Odd Blood getting most of the air time during the 90 minute set. Plus, the openers, Sleigh Bells, definitely slayed the audience with their two-person approach to sexy, guitar-riff garage electronica. That new genre is all the rage, by the way.
Sleigh Bells were an interesting act to see, but ultimately left me wishing I had brought my earplugs given how close we were. They had the bass bumping and the guitar riffs flying, and the lead singer was working the photogs up front with some interesting shots.
Yeasayer came out and brought with them a nice light show to match their newly dance-able psychedelia-style indie rock, so I immediately started filming the action. Problem is, I was standing a bit too close to the soundboard where an extra security guy was chilling, so he immediately came over and asked me to take the camera to coat check right away. It could have been worse, but I was still bummed I wasn’t going to have any real footage from the show. The set was interesting; I may be a bit used to the “old’ Yeasayer that was a little less synth and techno jams but I still had a good time at the show. The new songs from Odd Blood seemed so polished and rehearsed already, which was possible to witness if you saw their Coachella webcast slot like I did. I guess I knew what to expect and maybe that detracted from it a small amount, but all in all it really was a great show. Go buy tickets here if you want to catch them on their current tour.
