BrightestYoungThings: Live DC: French Kicks / Subjects / Ravens and Chimes @ RNR Hotel

all photos: Lexie Moreland

Thursday was a long day. Four hours of sleep. Meetings. (Un)Pleasant surprises around every corner.
6pm.
Lexie texts me "Speed walking home. Will call when in front".
I speed up my speed walking.
Lexie is in front.
It takes us 55 minutes to drive from Dupont to H street.
Its like we're going to a show in Baltimore.
We are painfully late for the BYT sessions Dave, Ryan and Rodrigo are doing with the bands.
I hate the traffic, hate the day, hate everything.
So, THANK THE LORD that this was such an all around (more than) satisfying show, as seriously, my faith in humanity was a lickle shaken beforehand.

Lexie and I ambush the French Kicks backstage mid-putting-on-socks to take some stills for the session (coming tomorrow!) and as their food arrives, we go back and eat some fries (truffled, with garlic mayo, also known at BYT as "the best thing in the world") and drink some beers to take the edge off.

These are the beers.
We ate the fries too fast to take any photos.

We make our way down to the first sounds of Ravens and Chimes.
We've been fans for a while now, and this is the second time I see the band live and every time I wish more people were there.
Seriously, get on board.
Now.
For the uninitiated, Ravens and Chimes is a sextet from Brooklyn and they play the kind of layered, multi vocal (I can't call it rock, but I don't want to call it pop) music that inevitably brings up Arcade Fire (they even recorded the album in the same studio where AF did theirs, in Montreal), but is really, a nice little nugget of their own, and in their own right.

There are flutes and synths and the level of music competence is only matched with the sheer joy in which you can see that each person loves each song they are singing, playing, tambourining to.

Some fun facts (courtesy of Cale) about them:

1) They recorded their album in Montreal at the same studio where the Arcade Fire recorded Funeral with the their former drummer/famed recording engineer Howard Bilerman
2) Singer Asher Lack used to intern for director Wes Anderson while in college
3) When they started recording bassist Abe Pollack, synth player Avery Brooks and Brittany Anjou were all homeless
4) Asher and Avery composed and recorded the score to an exercise video in between recording sessions for the Ravens and Chimes album

As I said....get on it.

Now for reasons unknown to human kind (a good one being that my brain is melting) i thought this was a 2 band bill, but I WAS WRONG.
And the band I did not know was playing was The Subjects who I initially complained "had no idea who they are, and maybe we should just go upstairs and eat some more fries and maybe take a nap".

I did say that.
And thank God we stayed for their first song because
1. I instantly remembered I've seen them before (they opened for Bellman Barker at their CD release last summer)
and
2. I instantly remembered I liked them A LOT that time I saw them before.

So, I'm gonna write some nice stuff about them to make up for being an ass before their show:
They're awesome.
Its pure, power pop joy, in combination with some 70s throwback guitar magic and one of the more beguiling frontmen (who actually was a teacher, just recently to the rest of his band!) that Lexie and I agreed we'd ever seen.

Their infectuous fun (and pretty amazing swaying skills) resulted in a switch of mood and energy in me that was equivalent to what would have happened if I was washing down anti-depressants with redbull - can't stand still, won't stand still, must smile all the time. ALL THE TIME.

Too bad the place was still kinda half empty at that point and everyone else looked as though they just kinda happened upon the show, as opposed to paying 15 bucks for it.
Next time-I promise.

Then-another break.
You see, the problem with 3 or 4 band bills on a school/work/torture night is not that there are 3 or 4 bands to be seen but that there are set breaks of approx. 20 to 25 minutes (optimistically!) between those 3 or 4 or 10 bands.
No good.

So, in these 25 minutes Lexie and I, both slowly fading, took a chance to scope out (and judge out) the fast incoming crowd (some of which had spent the better portion of the first two bands being drunk and playing jenga upstairs).
And here is our verdict:
Girls dress up for French Kicks shows.
Seriously dude.
There were dresses and sandals, and definite signs of "I went home after work to change" activity all around.
The side of the room that has mirrors on it was chock-a-block lined up with girls standing solo, like at a 50s school dance all of whom perked up very visibly as the band hopped on stage.

Now, what am I gonna say about the show...

French Kicks sound good live.
I know that.
You know that.
You don't really need me to say that to you.
They've been together for a while, and though they play the kind of gently overlayed music, that comes together as delicately as patterns of antique lace, they've worked out ways to make it sound crisp and not muffled and good even though (and I hate to say it again!) the sound at RNR could have been better (especially during some of the more soaring moments)
And DC fucking loves them.
All those people who were looking at their feet half an hour before were singing along, girls were (quite literally) twirling in their ballet slip ons, that dude that is at every RNR show crazy dancing was maybe dancing a little crazier than before and we were all in a little bubble together.

3/4s of the set in, the dreamyness of it all kinda made me remember that I just really wanted to be somewhere comfortable so sadly, we scooted (it wasn't because of you! i promise! i blame the day) but we did scoot with warm fuzzies inside. Who wants to tell me about encores and requests and group melting, please do so in the comments.

Bonus:
the most entertaining part of the evening was watching Lexie attempt to shoot Nick as she is pocket sized and on the ground and he is non-pocket sized and on stage. Telescopic.