The Rock and Roll Hotel was in full party swing last Friday night in celebration of the Hotel’s 5 Year Anniversary, and who better than Raleigh’s The Love Language to kick off the weekend’s festivities, with their infectious lo-fi indie pop rock. Despite the torrential rain earlier in the evening, the crowd was undeterred and cheerful, and The Love Language returned the sentiment with recognizable pleasers, the kind of songs you’ve been playing all summer at weekend barbecues and during long car rides to the beach.
While they did play a couple of new tracks towards the end of their set, including a song dedicated to Cody Votolato of Telekinesis (and The Blood Brothers), with whom they just toured last spring, the majority of the night was spent showcasing favorites from both their eponymous debut album and last year’s excellent Libraries release.
“Lalita” and “Heart to Tell” were both played early in the set; I just have to say that if at all possible, you must take the opportunity to see these songs performed live. Even more stripped-down and raw in person, I am at a loss to convey the experience in words other than “deeper.” Something was different that made it jarring but not uneasy or disquieting; the tempo wasn’t quite the same as the recorded versions, front man Stuart McLamb’s voice rose above the jangles, and the songs seemed to float on for an indeterminate amount of time. We were reminded of how live music from a band you’ve admired for a long time is really supposed to feel, both frenetic and soothingly familiar at once.
This continued as McLamb later launched into “Blue Angel,” the chorus meeting a seemingly respectfully quiet audience, as if they too, were lamenting star-crossed lovers separated by an ocean, the waves beating in time to drummer (and brother of Stu) Jordan McLamb. “Blue Angel” flowed smoothly into “Pedals” as I wondered how they always manage to make songs with sad lyrics so gleeful. “Sparxxx” continued the high-spirited melancholy, after which, the stalking introduction to “Brittany’s Back” burst forth into that jaunty exclamation of a song, “Hallelujah, thank god that I’m alive!”
I have read the band’s back story so many times via their label Merge and other music sites:
The Love Language, initiated by Stuart McLamb, is a fortunate by-product of the North Carolina native’s rudderless mid-20s, where a tempest of breakup, inebriation, and incarceration found the abandoned songwriter embarking on a storage-space recording project to slow his seeming disintegration.
So perhaps McLamb’s story is one of redemption—this band, these albums, a celebration of success, despite the fact that he, like Brittany of “Brittany’s Back,” “told the truth, but the truth was sad.” Perhaps that’s why their ardent, thoughtful lyrics are accompanied by deliriously unrestrained, upbeat rhythms, and every show is a fête even when it’s not the Rock and Roll Hotel’s birthday.
But, especially because it was the Hotel’s 5 Year Anniversary Party, The Love Language was a choice fit to headline the night because that institution is, to quote myself earlier, “both frenetic and soothingly familiar at once.” Happy Birthday, RnR.
Photo Credit: Sarah Gormley
OPENER: River James
(Apologies to opening band Archivists, as the rain delayed us, and we missed what we heard was a fun performance!)
