Obscured By Clouds + Echo Helstrom + ARZ - Columbia City Theater (Seattle, WA; Jun. 26. 2009)

Last night I set out for the evening with few expectations. I was not familiar with any of the acts, had never visited the Columbia City Theater before, and the show had been brought to my attention only one day prior. Still, when asked if I would be interested in covering a Obscured By Clouds performance featuring three cameras and a laser show, I did not hesitate: “you had me at lasers.”

And said lasers did not disappoint. Crafted by master artist Milo Mindbender, beams (or are they vectors?) of lights shot out from a bright point towards the back of the stage over the heads of the performers and manifested themselves against the walls and along the bottom of the balcony as waves, dots of color, and spider-like designs.

As we arrived at the theater (an old vaudeville-turned-studio/bar/music venue complete with small, round tables) I was impressed by the amount of sounds coming ARZ, a mere two men on stage. Shaved-headed Merill Hale worked his way around an impressive drum kit while Steve Adams, his grunge-rocker hair intact, adeptly managed vocals and all other duties (guitar/bass/keyboard coming from his single guitar) while appropriately rocking forward and back and pacing around the stage. Their final track built up a wall of sounds of which I initially had trouble discriminating. Reminding me of something my father might have put on as “halloween music,” it reminded me of an epic beach storm turned electric with some church bells clanging in the background. Again, props to the drum kit.

Next up was Echo Helstrom, and here I might note that not all bands are equally enhanced by the addition of lasers. Lacking overall in the creation of wave-like, pulsating music with echoey notes, there was less to sync up with given visuals from this otherwise pleasing indie–rock type group. As the group of five began their set, I questioned why they were sandwiched between two electric, psychedelic-type groups: unfortunately this question was never resolved. I remained generally unmoved throughout their performance, which is not to say that I disliked them but that I found their interplay with friends in the audience to be more eventful and humorous than their calm onstage performance. Sounding sort of like a mix between a smoother Barenaked Ladies, Cloud Cult, or Carbon Leaf (maybe it was just the violin, for me the violin always gives music either an Irish or bluegrass feel), I found their lyrics to be contrite at times and had a little trouble with some messy/imprecise guitar work as they started out. They did, however, have some stellar vocal harmonies between Ross Seligman and Will Amend and generally solid vocal crooning. As my companion pointed out, “All [Seligman] needs is a leather jacket, old-time microphone, and hair curl to be a ringer for Nick Urata” (of DeVotchKa). Utilizing a format of slower melodies punctuated with sudden increases in volume and tempo, they ended the evening with several “never-played-in-front-of-others” tunes. Overall, their performance was enjoyable but hardly unique. As my friend noted, “I could see John Mayer doing a song like this. But he’s not, so I can like it.”

Last up came Obscured By Clouds, which is indeed the title of a Pink Floyd album and also apparently a reference to a Shakespeare sonnet (the band mentions this here). In the brief time span I had to prepare (something like 30 minutes), I was able to gather that OBC is more about music as an integrative concept of conscious and subconscious sounds and words than some dudes playing their instruments and writing songs. This, the fact they are paying tribute to one of the best known psychedelic/progressive rock bands, and the presence of a laser show had led me to believe that I would be in for a show filled with dramatic lighting and overwhelming sound dripping with electric guitar solos, sustained notes, and fellows lunging on stage wiggling their guitars. Is this what I experienced? Not exactly.

It probably would have helped if there had been more folks present (I’ve never known audience energy to hurt a performance) and the sound had been mixed differently, but I couldn’t help wishing that I would be floored, inundated, knocked down, and overwhelmed by a band that clearly has talent and vision. Now getting a chance to listen to the album Psycheclectic, I’m impressed by a mixture of lulling moments and furious rock, random noises, currents of vocals that move in and out of the instruments, at times indistinguishable from the guitar (and vice versa?). Live, unfortunately, some of this complexity was lost. I could hardly make out the keyboards, tinkling percussion, or echoey vocals. Breaks between songs and silences in loud guitar work left feedback, which was present throughout most of the night, awkwardly exposed. I doubt this was due to lack of instrumental skill, as the guys went from fast-paced jamming to an almost full stop before bringing back the roar as if someone had turned a knob. I got the impression that these guys could have gone on for hours improving and jamming variations on a theme and I wish they would have let loose a bit more with this, as the “psychedelic” tracks on the album are my favorites ("Love’s Love,” “Soft Cheeked and Worried,” and Faith’s Soul” come to mind).

When frontman/creator William Weikart began his effortless, slow electric guitar introduction into “Bleed” I thought, “Finally! This is what I have been waiting for, that ballad intro of 70’s rock-out music that hints something epic is about to unfold.” It’s a bit unfortunate that I was only able to make out a glimmer of the lyrics at the show because upon further listen they create some complex imagery, mixing the tangible with the worldly. A personal favorite is “Love’s Love,” which opens:

Flesh like wax melting hearts in consuming tides
oceans wide
what currents
what winds fill our sails?
Content and adrift
with the want of having to wander
the path of knowing and leave a mass behind.

“Zoe Zoloft” (which Weikart introduced as, “Our strangest song, what brought us here tonight") implores chant-like vocals to describe both the mundane day and trippy sort of experience all in one. The lyrics are something close to:

She breathed life into me
and stood over to watch me sleep . . .
and her wings
carry me away . . .
trippy like a cosmic joke
I hide
I hide in my head
ohhhh
I hide in her head.

It’s unfortunate such well-crafted lines were not nearly as discernible as the precise and playful lasers.

The other major reason I was mistaken in my (admittedly severely under-informed) notion of what should be taking place on stage is the fact that while these guys clearly pay homage to bands like Pink Floyd and the like, they also pay homage to the grunge movement: Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and also bands that fall into the metal genre that I wont pretend to be familiar with. OBC might be the perfect example of how grunge music could have (d)evolved from the rock of the 60’s and 70’s. And Weikart’s voice is perhaps even better suited for this style. He’s what you might get if you sat down all the dramatic grunge singers and told them that the goal is not to be a male Ani DiFranco. That is, every breath you take does not have to be audible, every syllable-release epic (I couldn’t help hearing Peter Gabriel while listening to the album). Live-Weikart’s delivery was steady (though unfortunately not terribly understandable), bridging fast-pounding electric guitar riffs, moving bass, and rapid drumming (here again much-reminiscent of a metal band) with meandering themes. And this is where the lasers could have created an incredibly dramatic mood; however, the lights remained a bit too bright, the musicians a bit too static. Not having familiarity with these guys, I can’t say whether in their earlier days they wore hole-riddled jeans and flannel and jumped about the stage, but the men present seemed too calm for such antics, sporting non-descript attire. The most movement came when Weikart wandered over to the lasers and briefly thrust his guitar into the beams of yellow and blue light, finally bringing a small smile to his face. Though I won’t claim to ever have been a “rocker” myself, I’d come to the show hoping for perhaps some of that energy and left wishing we could have all “rocked” for a mere hour. I left with a notion that some great potential was left somewhere other than the stage. Whether it was just an oddity of the evening or something more I guess I’ll have to wait for our forthcoming review from Portland for further confirmation.

DOWNLOAD: Obscured By Clouds - Soft Cheeked and Worried (MP3) or Follow us for more Obscured By Clouds MP3s (Twitter)

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