Savannah Stopover brought back one of the festival favorites for another visit on Wednesday. The last time Milagres was in town, in early March for the festival, they were but young men traveling the country full of talent and potential. They rocked while they were here (or so I was told by everyone in attendance, because I stopped to see Prince Rama before leaving to set up for the after-party). When they returned last night, it was with some more successes under their collective belt, including the release their debut
Glowing Mouth, and a lot more touring.
The touring might be wearing them out, or so pontificated someone next to me, who felt that they exuded more raw energy during Stopover. I wouldn't know. I got a taste of what he meant when they kicked into the album's title track, which they saved like a dangling carrot until near the end of their set.
The energy they brought to performing that track was double the energy of any other song in the set. They exploded into it, drawing the crowd into as much of a frenzy as they would reach all night. But where was that energy for the rest of the night? Don't get me wrong, Milagres is a great live band and their set was well-played, but it rendered the album beautifully from studio to stage...a little too well...so that some of the risk and effusive rawness of live performance was lost.
If you haven't checked them out, I'd highly recommend giving the album,
Glowing Mouth, a spin if you're looking for some moody psych-pop-rock with a tip of the hat to Spector-esque reverb.
One of the night's heroes, however, was Peter Wolf Crier's drummer. This guy plays like a maniac - a real octopus on meth.
In most cities, Peter Wolf Crier is the headliner, but in Savannah, we like to do things our own way. The Minneapolis-based band was really good though. The lead singer, who is a handsome man according to reports from nearby lady drool, was also pretty funny, even if the casually dropped title of an overly academic-sounding paper he presented on his previous (non-musical) visit to Savannah leaned a bit toward pomposity.
Musically, they are what happens when waves of sound crush a U2 concert and then ride their dirt bikes across it. They closed with an INXS cover that was awesome. At one point, the singer's distortion pedals were feeding back a little too much for my liking - like when it crosses over from being awesome and distorted and just becomes piercing to an overwhelming degree. He didn't seem to notice, so either he's lost a hi-frequency range in his hearing, was being polite to play through some extended feedback in the PA, or the song was supposed to sound like that...
Overall though, they played a great set which was executed with what appeared to be precision planning. The rise and fall of moods, the crashing of white noise into the ambient intros of new songs, the build-up to a frenetic close - it was well done. They make a great pairing with Milagres, although I think I do prefer Milagres to play second, all things being equal...
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