Gazing at bubbles, not shoes

Kids with bubbles

Chill on the Hill is a family event, generally, so pretty much every post I make about COTH mentions the kids. My kids, heck, most of my friends' kids love going to Chill On The Hill, but frankly, I have to admit, it's not about the music for them. They just love hanging out with their pals, other kids, in a place where they're free to run around, be loud, be outside, etc. I wish they loved the music as much as us grownups do, but when you're young, music is background, not foreground like it is for me now.

So this week, a couple of kind of shoe gazing, kind of alternative bands were up on the stage that really drove home this point. The first band, a relatively new group called Dramatic Lovers certainly lived up to their name. They were very much a shoe gazer band whose songs had that dirgey beat behind impassioned vocals that screamed "DRAMA!" Yet, the word on the street was that their kids were all in the audience and to entertain them, there were cute little bubble machines lined up like they were footlights. The toddlers and kindergarteners loved them, but all I could think of, seeing these bubbles floating about on top of these very serious dramatic songs, was that time on the Osbournes when Sharon thought it would be a good idea to have bubbles on stage and Ozzy's saying "Bubbles? I'm Ozzy Effin Osbourne, the Prince of Effin Darkness! How evil can bubbles be?"  (yes, I sanitized this quote because this is a family blog post, by and about families.) I think you could have been playing funeral dirges and the kids would have been happy to dance and jump around, chasing bubbles. 

Dramatic bubbles

So, beyond the bubbles, I was glad I didn't know anything about Dramatic Lovers before I decided I liked them. My companions were absolutely convinced that they were dead ringers, musically, for Sunny Day Real Estate, and I insisted that lead singer William Seidel's voice brought to mind the Cure's Robert Smith: with bits of cries (not weak cries) on top. I was just so jarred by the contradiction in visuals/environment (beautiful crisp summer evening, gorgeous sun, and of course the happy children obliviously playing with the bubbles) versus the heavy intensity of the emo rock being put before us. This happened to me before when I went to see this band's precursor, Decibully. I finally got to see them, and with a name like "Decibully" I was expecting some power punk hardcore outfit that was going to be ripe for slam dancing and aggro. Instead, they turned out to be more ago-emo, and I was jarred because I was in the mood for the former. Band names count, guys. But here's Dramatic Lovers: a band that lives up to their name and delivers what you'd expect. Except for the bubbles. I didn't expect bubbles with this music.

Piles of bubbles

The bubbles didn't stop, and neither did the shoe gazing, but the next band, Piles, comes from more of a punk background, or so they've said in their interviews. They're more like punks who eventually got really good at playing their instruments, but instead of going rockabilly (which is a common meme), they went for intense jamming. That's when Piles drew me in to the point where I didn't even notice the bubbles (yes, they were still going). At first I felt about them the way I did about Dramatic Lovers: this was a band that would probably seem more at home in a dark club, like the Cactus Club. It's not just the darkness either, its the enclosed space, the smell of alcohol, the consciously disaffected (which actually means affected) audience. But often, Piles let loose in a song where they would drift off into a jam that sneaked up on me, and wouldn't let up. I've definitely got them on my "must see again" list, but maybe on a crappy winter day because I'll need the energy they put out.