A sold-out fashionable looking lot packed The Bell House in Brooklyn on Thursday Night as an exuberant feeling was circling from the crowd to the stage and back again. Shannon and the Clams delighted all with their mix of surf pop and bright rock styles as they brought their Bay area artistic style east.
Opening the evening was Brooklyn’s own Las Rosas who delivered a retro garage rock sound. Bass player Jose Abyer’s fluid work spearheaded the group who were playing this opening set as a five-piece. The band had some issues though as buzzing speakers seemed overloaded at times making frontman and lead guitarist Jose Boyer almost impossible to understood vocally on tracks like “Boys”, “Christa” and “Tax Man”.
Shannon and the Clams strolled on stage and had no such problem as they started off in front of a backdrop of tripped out Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons before things took off around the shaking pumped up “Ozma”. The gorgeous sounds, especially from songwriters Shannon Shaw and Cody Blanchard make for a ringing combo both audibly and visually from the band; as the dueling frontman/woman they look like the king and queen of the coolest psychedelic high school dance.
“If You Could Know” shined amongst the sparkly-eyed crowd as bass beats bumped before the rumbling of Nate Mahan’s drums propelled “The Boy” giving the dancing fans an energetic workout. The keyboards from Will Sprott colored “I Never Wanted Love” while Shaw took center stage for the slowly building ballad “Don’t Close Your Eyes” which emotionally tugged at heartstrings.
The quartet had it all working as they raced through their galloping western Americana tinged “I Leave Again”, the garage/punk rock of the slamming “Rat House” and their buzzing arena-ready ode to fallen friends on “Backstreets” before the punchy sing-along, “You Will Always Bring Me Flowers”.
The group capped the night by delivering a pitch-perfect cover during their encore as they tackled Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” ending on a powerful tune while displaying their influences and their increasingly great back catalog to a thoroughly appreciative crowd.
