By: Bob Longmore
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Sam Keenan - Photo by David de Young
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Sam Keenan celebrated the release of his new album, All the Dark Colored Markers Went Dry, with an energetic show at the Triple Rock. There was a rumor that Keenan and his band had only practiced a handful of times before the show—if that is true, it certainly didn’t show. Keenan alternated between guitar and keyboards throughout the night, showing virtuosity on both. The band seemed keyed on Keenan’s every move. And with a musical shape-shifter like Keenan, that is no small task.
The full band shined a different light on what is an eclectic mix of songs. Keenan’s album plays like a mix tape. An Elvis Costello song here, an Eagles of Death Metal song here, nothing seems out of the realm of possibility for Keenan. The album is seriously varied, but each genre shift is done with skill and in the hands of lesser musicians, would be doomed to failure. Keenan, however, is true to each genre and thus creates his own rewarding, if schizophrenic, catalog.
Keenan started the show by asking the crowd, “OK. Who’s sober?” The crowd woo-ed and hollered, then Keenan deadpanned, “That doesn’t sound very sober to me.”
The second song of the set, “Miracle,” is steady rock song with heartfelt lyrics that would fit right in, I believe, at the radio station where Keenan works his day job, The Current. Keenan could write a whole album’s worth of these kind of standard rock songs, but instead he definitely chooses to mix things up.
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| Sam Keenan - Photo by David de Young |
The electronic peculiarity of “BoomBoomBoom” even came off as something more than novelty. The weirdness of the song belies Keenan’s musical talent. Electronic drums fired spastically and Keenan’s hands splayed above the keyboard jumping in and out of the song letting the chords die and jump back to life, while the beat kept going. The nonsensical lyrics are merely another layer of sound that go something like, “Shake, Shake, Shake/ Rumble, Rumble.” Keenan quipped after the song, “I think the lyrics are the best part of that song.”
The highlight of the album and the show, for me, was “Rosie’s Door.” I think this is where Keenan is his best, combining the disparate elements of the entire album into one song. The straightforward, heartfelt rock song set against a drum loop background and colored by electronic flourishes. Keenan sings earnestly, “We sat and we traded scars/ She showed me her beauty mark…/ How wonderful it was.”
At the beginning of a Magnetic Fields influenced, “Top of The World” Keenan darted off the stage and returned just in time for the first verse with an old-fashioned glass of tequila in hand. For a guy who is just releasing his first album, Keenan seems comfortable and confident being on stage. He sings and plays with an easy confidence.
Opening for Keenan were North and The Glad Version. North played what sounded like English, new-wave, stoner rock. Dressed in vests and ties, the bands Coldplay-like melodies intermingled with an organ-heavy grooves and extended instrumental jams.
The Glad Version have a reserved energy about them. Sure, they are not jumping around the stage and screaming, but that doesn’t mean they lack for intensity. Like a pressure cooker of emotions, they seem on the edge of exploding. At times poppy and urgent, and at times dark and brooding, their songs are always catchy and singer Adam Svec’s words are filled with emotion at every clever syllable. Their last song, “Ambulance,” has a melody that will linger between your ears for days with a stop-start rhythm and lyrics like, “Maybe this time it can be perfect, it can be wordless/ Maybe this time I can mean it, you can believe it.”
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: North, Sam Keenan, The Glad Version
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