Big Rock Candy Mountain is a band based out of New Orleans, with a heavy influence from the louder side of indie rock. Theirs is the kind of unity that you love to see in a band, operating in perfect harmony, with crashing drums and cymbals intermingling with cluster bells and epic bass lines, all over incomprehensible lyrics that prove that the voice is an instrument, and you don’t have to hear the words to feel the power of them. They are well beloved in New Orleans, as is obvious from the musical royalty that makes a presence at the show: Sam Craft of New Orleans’ premiere indie dance band, Glasgow, is front and center at the base of the stage, dancing like there’s no tomorrow and playing air violin when the music moves him to do so. Their set is comprised of just a few songs, but the performance is memorable; the lead singer and keyboard player, who looks like Sean Lennon if his mother was Susan Sarandon instead of Yoko Ono, performs with the kind of energy that some bands only wish they had, clambering up onto his bench to jump down and slam the keys of his Casio with all his weight, while the guitarist slings his axe back and beats a cluster of bells, arranged on a handle like flowers on a foxglove plant. And through it all the drummer works himself into a frenzy that Animal from the Muppets would watch with jealousy. After the show, I ask Mr. Not-Lennon when the band will play next in their hometown, and he tells me that they are working on laying down a new album that they hope to have ready for this summer, and don’t have any more live shows planned for the next few months, but that they never know when they’ll be called upon to play again, so I should keep my eyes open. I’m passing along this information to you, because I whole-heartedly concur: if you get the chance, Big Rock Candy Mountain is a band that you want to see.
Closing out the night were Baton Rouge’s most beloved indie darlings Prom Date, whom you may remember as the winners of 2009’s Baton Rouge Battle of the Bands, or from their massive and glorious show last year for Groovin’ On the Grounds (a move which prompted one musically oblivious Daily Reveille reader to comment “I’m pretty excited about this year’s line-up, except for the Prom Dates [sic]; I haven’t heard of them.”). Prom Date first made their name in the dimly-remembered days of 2007, when they still had a female singer and were largely compared to Baton Rouge’s then-flavor of the month The Eames Era, who have gone on to gain some notoriety for their contributions to the soundtrack for the surprisingly-still-on-the-air ABC show Grey’s Anatomy. Since then, the band has gone through a few different roster changes, and this was their first show with a mysterious new drummer known only as “Steven,” following the recent departure of Zachary Bourque, now of Monsters Will, who can still be heard on Prom Date’s Clockout EP which was released during the back half of last year.
Prom Date has been widely renowned in the Baton Rouge scene for their moving lyrics and attention to all details, in contrast to some other bands which emphasize certain members over others and largely concern themselves with image over substance. Furthermore, their willingness to experiment has garnered them many fans (if you haven’t gone to youtube and watched their acoustic version of “Molehills,” featuring guitarist James West accompanied by Jack-of-many-instruments David Fuller on accordion and bassist Nick Boudreau providing percussion backing with a typewriter, then you are truly missing something beautiful; go check it out, we’ll be here when you get back). For years, their repertoire was fairly small: after the departure of their female singer, their set list remained largely the same, growing slowly beyond their standards, such as “Molehills,” “Kiss & Tell,” and “Photobook” to include relatively recent additions like “James’ Song,” “Ghost Town,” and “Good Morning, Boyfriend.” Gone are the days when you could count on their set being padded out with covers of “99 Luftballoons,” or their stellar rendition of MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” at last year’s GotG, but the new material is so fantastic that you can hardly begrudge it.
For the first half of the set, Prom Date pulls out the standards that Baton Rouge has come to know and love, and the crowd goes wild, thrashing and screaming along to every line and lyric the city has come to know by heart. Aforementioned mysterious “Steven” misses a couple of beats on some of the older stuff, but the untested new member recovers immediately, and it is doubtful that anyone who is not a slavishly devoted Prom Date fan would even notice. The crowd is frenzied, and a shirt is thrown onto the stage in a fit of passion (okay, I admit, it was me). Singer/keyboardist Brett Burke then grabs his mic from the stand: “This is my favorite part of the set,” he says. “This is the part where we get to play new music for you.
Remember what I said about experimentation? Prom Date has evolved beyond their roots, but instead of so many bands that distance themselves from their beginnings, before deteriorating into a total mess with their second album (I need not list examples here, all you have to do is Google “sophomore slump” for more evidence than you can shake a stick at), this has only served to further their musical interests. Purists may scoff at the use of a laptop during a live show (I know I sure have, before a performance by Modern Skirts at Hi-Ho Lounge some months ago made me realize that I was, perhaps, a little too set in my ways), but Prom Date not only utilizes the software available to musicians these days, but takes it a step further, incorporating the use of Wii controllers into the performance, to much crowd enthusiasm. That miracle of 1970s pioneering, the keytar, also makes its first appearance on Prom Date’s stage, wielded by both Burke and West, and the crowd loves it.
The show ends, without the rendition of “Kiss & Tell” that the crowd has come to expect since the band first re-introduced it to Baton Rouge after Rachel’s departure and their subsequent tweaking of the key (taking it down a fifth, for those of you keeping score at home). An encore is demanded with the kind of riotous energy that nationally renowned bands would envy, going on for several minutes, before Boudreau retakes the stage to thank everyone for coming out and admit that they have played every song the new drummer knows, and that the bar is closed besides, so we should get home safe. The applause follows him out.
It remains to be seen whether or not their new stuff will become as popular as their beloved favorites, but my money’s on “Yes.” In the meantime, they better teach Steven to play “Kiss & Tell,” or next time there might just be an actual riot.
Mark “Boomer” Redmond is a former KLSU DJ, writer, and graduate student at the University of New Orleans. He currently lives in the Bywater with a cat named Murderface. He can be reached at boomerklsu@gmail.com.
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