Brightest Young Things

Doors for Sunday's night’s late show at the 9:30 Club opened at 10pm. Nico Vega, the clamorous opening act from L.A., didn’t even make it to the stage until some time past 10:30. The two-man second act, Johnossi, came out at about the hour that most nine-to-five clubbers normally start tucking themselves into bed. By the time main-act Shout Out Louds started playing, most office space babies were well into their REM sleep cycles.

But DC’s Shout Out Louds aficionados patiently stuck it out like troopers from late Sunday night to early Monday morning.

Nico Vega worked hard to wake up a small, and relatively inattentive audience. The band clattered through the 9:30 Club, with barefooted lead-singer, Aja, spending most of her time howling and at times, yelling à la Limp Bizkit-style into the microphone. With each song, Aja teased audience members with a few brief, but splendid moments of vocal calm when she chose to sing instead of scream. At their best, Nico Vega’s spine-tingling performance of “Wooden Dolls” flaunted Aja’s electrifying voice and the band’s lyrical songwriting abilities. However, Nico Vega ended their show at their worst, with bulky drums and an unwieldy guitar nearly smothering Aja’s trite and spoken Sunday sermon on loving one’s neighbor.

DC learned that two skinny boys from Stockholm who call themselves Johnossi can rock just a hard as their LA-based predecessors. With the help of drummer Ossi, John Englebert proved that acoustic guitars can be badass too. Johnossi consistently struck the necessary balance between pleasant and edgy in their artistic refusal to sacrifice quality for quantity (of sound that is). While Johnossi boasts that “simplicity is the key,” the show’s only defect was the absence of ups and downs that caused the performance to prematurely plateau. However the effect may have been amplified by sleepy and distracted Shout Out Louds fans who were impatiently counting the minutes for the main attraction to begin.

It was early Monday morning by the time the sparkling Shout Out Louds splashed on stage. Nevertheless, the audience had thickened from a thin soup of indie-rockers, to a hearty and colorful bubbling stew. “What the hell are you guys doing here? Don’t you have to go to work or something tomorrow?” asked dreamy lead-singer, Adam.

The reason for the crowd’s looming and self-imposed sleep deprivation was affirmed by the band’s smooth and whimsical nocturnal melodies.
The Shout Out Louds were reflective, but playful, and even remained light-hearted when Adam’s guitar malfunctioned in the middle of a still charming version of new song, “Impossible.”

9:30 Club lost some major points for booking a bright and uber-talented headliner band to play on a cold, dark Monday morning. All of yesterday’s bands get an “E” for the effort and energy they put into an obnoxiously late school-night show.

all photos: Ryan Wakeman

Previously in Live DC:

• 2/14: LiveDC: Sharon Van Etten/ Shearwater @ Black Cat
• 2/14: LiveDC: Die Antwoord @ 930 Club
• 2/13: LiveDC: George Clinton & The Parliament-Funkadelic @ 930 Club
• 2/13: LiveDC: Veronica Falls/ Brilliant Colors @ Black Cat
• 2/13: LIVE DC: Steve Aoki/ Datsik/ Alvin Risk @ Fillmore
• 2/13: LiveDC: The Darkness @ 930 Club
• 2/9: LiveDC: Theophilus London @ 930 Club
• 2/9: Best Weekend Bets
• 2/8: LiveDC: Kathleen Edwards @ 930 Club
• 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat