The two words most frequently employed to describe The Sea and Cake are pleasant and consistent, and Tuesday night's show did nothing to dispel these adjectives. The tenured Chicago quartet's most recent album, Everybody, is "dreamlike, hot-buttered pop music" (says the press release) and "sort of a Yo La Cocktease" (says the Dig), but on stage at the Paradise they put out: breezy songs that implied a sunny but solitary stroll by the ocean became, live, a well-attended beach party—still too aloof for O.C.-style fisticuffs, but playful and more forthright than Bostonist had expected.
The not-quite-full house began to nod appreciatively, breaking out in possibly ironic shouts of SEXYYYY!!!! and, as momentum built, a sort of shy, rhythmic jostling—outright dancing was limited to a small clutch of young, legging-clad women. Not until their encore did the band rock a little ways out of their three-and-a-half-minute songs. Sam Prekop's breathy singing, Billy Corgan minus the tortured kitten, was the vocal equivalent of a wistful sidelong glance, met by Archer Prewitt's in occasionally yelled harmony. Drummer John McEntire was a joy to watch as he pounded into each song. (We're pleased to note that Tortoise will bring him back to Boston in July.)
Opening up the show, Thrill Jockey labelmates The Zincs seemed to win over the sparsely-populated room with solid rock songs in a brooding The National-esque vein. Fresh from a suspended tour with Low, affable Swedes Loney, Dear followed with an engaging set, mostly confessional in tone, that picked up speed with "I Am John" and, later, took an intriguing turn with "Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl," a nearly wordless song that singer-songwriter Emil Svanängen described as "simple, but tricky" and which Bostonist would call lovely, the illuminated birthday cake part of a salty-sweet evening.
From top, left to right: The Sea and Cake; half your recommended daily allowance of The Zincs; Loney, Dear; the front door of the Paradise Rock Club, disappointing somebody.
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