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Tuesday night, while the Red Sox were busy collapsing in on themselves like a massive, dying star, AA Bondy and the Cold War Kids put on a sold-out show at the Paradise. When opening act AA Bondy took the stage, concertgoers put away the bad news mlb.com was refreshing on their phones in favor of Bondy's inviting folk.
With a harmonica around his neck and the opening line "Come out to the edge where it is quiet" from "Witness Blues" on his album American Hearts, it's hard to picture Bondy as the former bleach-blonde lead singer of Verbena, a band heralded to be the next Nirvana back in the late '90s.
These days, Bondy looks and sounds more like Bob Dylan than Kurt Cobain. With a stick of incense burning on stage, Bondy launched into a set of no-frills folk rock that had crowd members bobbing their heads in appreciation. Toward the end of the set, Bondy picked up the pace with a floor-stamping rendition of "Vice Rag" before announcing, "I just ate the last of this year's crop of mushrooms before I came on so..." Bondy paused with a blink and then continued, "This next one is a children's song: 'I Killed Myself When I Was Young.'" Bondy finished off the set with <"American Hearts." Lines like "Don't tread on me/ for I am your brother/ I was born with an American heart" felt all the more poignant being sung during a time that Bondy called "the eve of financial destruction."
Read about the Cold War Kids' set at the Paradise after the jump!
With the Hamlet-y backdrop of a black and white skull and a long synth intro, the Cold War Kids took the stage and kicked their set off with "Every Valley is Not a Lake" from the recently released album Loyalty to Loyalty. The Long Beach-based indie rock foursome kept the energy high throughout the set, playing a generous helping of new material along with fan-favorite tracks from the 2006 album Robbers & Cowards.
The theatrics were set to straightforward rock, with a creative detour during the song "Robbers" when lead singer Nathan Willett said "we want to see your faces" before the band broke out flashlights and shone them around the darkened venue. Their latest radio hit "Something is Not Right with Me" was a big fan-favorite, but their first hit "Hang Me Out to Dry" was the real belt-along anthem of the evening. The crowd moved along appreciatively to the band's slow-burn into inevitable jangly-breakdown signature sound, with an encore performance of "Saint John" that turned the Paradise into a church revival with fans waving their arms as if to testify. Two "psychedelic flutists" joined the band on stage for the final musical breakdown.
At the end of the show, Willett announced that the band was trying to get to New York City that evening and was looking for a ride. He encouraged any fans heading that way to meet them after the show to discuss it. If you happened to be the lucky fan who drove all night to New York City with the Cold War Kids, drop us a line in the comments. We're sure you have quite the story to tell.
Cold War Kids photo by tammylo and used under the CC license. Visit AA Bondy's MySpace page and Cold War Kids' website to hear more of the music.
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