Posted on April 17, 2010 by Greg

The Morning Benders and Miniature Tigers
Lincoln Hall, April 12, 2010

Lincoln Hall is a new club owned and operated by Chris and Mike Schuba, who also run the great venue named after them on Belmont Ave. LH opened last October at 2424 N. Lincoln Ave, in the 8,400 sf building that housed the old Three Penny Cinema. It has been completely renovated, with a restaurant up front, a spacious main floor, a nice big stage and a three-sided mezzanine for upper viewing. I’d estimate capacity to be around 500 people. It has a full tech booth in the back of the house and is equipped with excellent sound and lighting equipment. Also, in a smart move, the bar in the venue is placed about mid-house, so it is accessible to everyone, and not crammed in the back. Even the bathrooms are nice, which is a very rare thing for a rock club. We have ventured here tonight to see one Lollapalooza artist open for another in a sold-out show that was switched from Schubas to accommodate demand.

Miniature Tigers

Phoenix, AZ’s Miniature Tigers is first up, and they quickly warm the crowd with their quirky charm. I had heard some Weezer and Flaming Lips influence in their first album, Tell it to the Volcano. But live, they sound almost tropical. They’re a lively mix of pop, island music, electronica, basement rock and all-around playfulness that is fairly unclassifiable. There’s a lot of open strumming and falsetto vocals, with some whistling and keyboard distortion sprinkled in.

Front man Charlie Brand has a very laid-back way of bringing an audience in and making them feel like friends. He checks in every few songs with a sincere, “How you guys doing? You doing OK?” A kid from the crowd shouts, “That was rockin’, son!” and Brand jokes, “Thanks dad, thanks for coming to our show! Really means a lot to us.” He introduces a song called “Coyote Enchantment” by saying, “If you guys feel like doing a little Native American spiritual dancing in this one, that’d be fun.”

His bandmates switch off playing guitars, drums, keys, maracas… whatever comes up. Algernon Quashie seems the most adaptable, moving between a bunch of instruments with ease. They play only a couple of older songs, focusing mostly on material from their upcoming album, Fortress. It’s all breezy, feel-good stuff. Toward the end of their set, Brand ventures into the crowd for a group dance and creates some good-natured laughs, as kids who were not exactly born to dance do their best.

The Morning Benders

The Morning Benders give me a Smith Westerns flashback as they take the stage to the screams of many young girls. This San Fran band also features a pair of cooed-over brothers, but they sound leagues more mature than the SWs, so I’m somewhat astonished to see how young they are. They are supporting an album called Big Echo, which is an appropriate title, given its orchestral pop explosions and addictive melodies that echo through your head for days. The cover art of the album is almost as good; a lovely painting of an endless-summer beach scene that evokes the Wall of Sound era the album is reaching for.

Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor produced Big Echo, and has been getting a lot of credit for these guys’ success, but from the way they play and work the crowd, it’s clear they’re for real. Lead singer Christopher Chu has a dynamic singing voice, impressive guitar chops and a wide-eyed enthusiasm that’s infectious. His brother Jonathan is quieter, but every bit as talented. Algernon Quashie (from Miniature Tigers) plays the whole set with them and acts as multi-instrumentalist, backing singer and surrogate big brother, giving them little grins and nods of approval, even pranking Jonathan once by goosing him with a drumstick.

Naturally, they reserve their most popular song, “Excuses” for the end. Perhaps pulling inspiration from Charlie Brand, Chris Chu walks into the crowd and induces a full-audience sing-along to the “la-da-da-da” parts. EVERYONE sings along, and I even hear whole sections of the crowd harmonizing with other sections. It’s an incredibly warm, unifying moment, and it carries their set to one of the more satisfying endings I’ve experienced at a show. It reminds me that live music is vital in a way that recorded music can never fully be: at its best, it brings people together like nothing else. It’s days later as I write this, and I can still hear the full-house harmony echoing through my mind like the waves in that endless-summer painting.

–Greg from The Uncool

The UnRecorded | Live Music: The Morning Benders & Miniature Tigers at Lincoln Hall10.0106