On Wednesday night at the 9:30 Club, an eager audience was lucky enough to glimpse a few promising, emerging indie rock and pop acts. The sold-out show featured three Portland bands (two Oregon—openers Wild Ones and main act Typhoon, and one Maine—Lady Lamb the Beekeeper) playing a series of relatively quick sets to the sold out crowd.
The night started with Portland, Oregon’s Wild Ones, a five-piece act headed by the lithe, ballerina-like lead vocalist Danielle Sullivan. Their half hour set drew from their 2013 debut Keep It Safe. Watching Sullivan’s calm demeanor on stage and the ease and talent with which the instrumentalists delivered their electro-pop tracks, it was impossible to sense the obstacles that Wild Ones had to overcome to get to the 9:30 Club stage.
From quitting band members to a punctured lung to thousands of dollars of debt, the path Wild Ones took to even release their album was anything but easy—or quick, taking well over a year of collective, DIY efforts to issue.
But from my place in the audience on Wednesday night, their persistence was well worth it. Theirs is a dreamy pop with well-placed electronic features, slow chords building to strong crescendos that show off Sullivan’s soaring, airy vocals. With only a small audience to start, their sound felt particularly cavernous.
As a front woman, Sullivan easily drew attention, her voice high and floaty but commanding when the lyrics and feelings called for it. Her quirky dance moves—prayer hands, little squats, standing on one foot—seemed appropriate, even endearing. She was complemented by the charismatic bassist Max Stein, guitarist Nick Vicario, drummer Steve Sheldon, and keyboardist Thomas Hines.
For me, the highlights of their set were the unanticipated moments—a song that started with just bass, drums, and extra percussive pieces, for instance, powerful and different. Sullivan and her band have an extraordinary ability to find the big, dramatic moments in a song as well as the smaller moments of quiet that create intrigue and emotion. On the last song of the set, “Paia,” Vicario joined in with harmonizing vocals, adding depth to the beauty. With that surprise, Wild Ones ended their set – more than a little too soon.
Next up was Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, otherwise known as 23-year-old Aly Spaltro. Spaltro walked on the stage, petite and unassuming in jeans, lace up boots and striped t-shirt, long hair hanging past her shoulders. By this point, the 9:30 Club was over half full—but I don’t think most of the audience was quite prepared for the power about to overtake the room.
Wednesday night was Spaltro’s first show in three and a half months, and while she wrote and arranged all of the songs herself on her first studio album, 2013’s Ripley Pine, she is touring with a bassist and drummer. Her songs are long and winding, transitioning tempos and feelings while deftly managing to stay coherent. Spaltro was 18 and 19 when she wrote these tracks; their lyrics are often dramatic but the arrangements, complexity, and intensity of the songs mostly keep them from feeling young.
And intense they are. Spaltro kicked off with “Bird Balloons,” a no holds barred song that begins with the lyrics, “I’m a ghost & you all know it. I’m singing songs & I ain’t slowing,” and ends with her screaming/laughing “haha” into the mic. It was a dramatic introduction – a warning that she is different, loud, and unafraid.
Spaltro often sings with a lower, grainier voice that lends itself well to angry, up-tempo tracks like “Abuergine.” But she also allows moments of beauty, particularly when they have the most impact. Toward the end of the set, the bassist and drummer left the stage, leaving Spaltro alone in the spotlight, holding a banjo. She sang “Regarding Ascending the Stairs” solo, delivering a sometimes harsh but mostly gentle version of the song. It highlighted her talent and diversity as a musician as much as the strength of her performance.
Along with songs from Ripley Pine, Spaltro played a couple of new tracks that will be part of her next album, including one apparently inspired by Nintendo. The songs she played retain her trademark complexity, bringing in punk, blues, and even pop elements interspersed with periods of melancholy that are worth every twist and turn and surprise—and left me looking forward to a new album and next trip to DC.
Two hours after Wild Ones walked on stage, it was time for the main act, Portland’s breakout band Typhoon. Typhoon is less of a band and more of an orchestra, with three horn players, two drummers, two guitarists, two violinists, one bassist, and one ukulele/percussionist—it is quite a feat to even fit this group on stage. One of the guitarists, Kyle Morton, is also the lead singer and primary songwriter. The band looks exactly like you would imagine an indie rock band from Portland with horns and strings would look—plaid, beanies, mustaches, the works.
With bands this big—think Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (10-15 people), Gogol Bordello (9 members), or Arcade Fire (7-10 members, depending on history)—the challenge is to prevent chaos while ensuring each band member has a reason to be on stage.
For the most part, Typhoon succeeds. This is most easily evident on songs that single out a single instrument. On “Young Fathers,” off of the band’s 2013 album White Lighter, over half of the band members were on a drum or percussion instrument of some sort—and it worked. At other times, Typhoon’s strength comes from working gorgeous violin solos into otherwise-typical indie rock anthems.
A band of this size doesn’t allow for much experimentation or deviation on stage. Typhoon gets around this both through sheer power and enthusiasm, but they also manage to work in a few successful performance gimmicks that helps band members connect with the crowd while giving the audience the feeling they’re hearing more than just a replay of the album.
Midway through the hour-long set, Morton called out, “Do you guys want to sing along on a song?” The eager crowd yelled in appreciation and Typhoon launched into “Dreams of Cannibalism,” which ended with a joyous crowd yelling along with every single member of the band, “Soon enough you will be dancing at my funeral.”
During the final song of the encore, Typhoon let go, Morton and guitarist Dave Hall locking shoulders like bulls in a ring, bassist Toby Tanabe in his own world, the music strong and authentic. It was fleeting, and perhaps not the most unique or engaging moment of the show for most of the audience—but it was a glimpse into the true power that might lie in Typhoon’s many numbers.
