Scenes from Wednesday Nights Esben and the Witch Show at Club Dada.
Wednesday night was a packed affair. Parade of Flesh had booked British rockers Esben and the Witch at Club Dada, Danny Brown and Harlem Shake hero Baauer were across the street at Trees and Colleen Green was heading a packed local bill at Crown and Harp. The Mavs were hosting the Suns in a, dear god let's make .500 game and we're in the midst of the Dallas International Film Fest.
It seemed like the Esben and the Witch show got lost in the listings. It was a pretty sparse crowd at Dada. You can't blame Parade of Flesh though. It was probably just a case of you can't win 'em all. They've been the best consistent indie booking in town for awhile now and as a tastemaker once in awhile it just doesn't happen for you.
It's not for a lack of trying though. The Parade of Flesh e-mail newsletter is a constant source of great new bands and incredibly packed with youtube videos, soundcloud links, and bandcamp pages. They go out of their way to introduce you to a lot of these acts that many of us haven't heard of.
Aside from the lack of a crowd it was a really solid show.
Cutter led off the show with their throbbing industrial dark-wave sound. It was a little left field against the rest of the lineup, but it was heavy enough that it fit in with the bill after all. Look for them on Record Store Day at Good Records.
The lack of crowd made for an especially intimate venue and atmosphere. During the Heliptropes set there was a lot of banter. Lead singer Jessica Numsuwankijkul had a back and forth with the crowd about how crazy the weather was. It was eventually decided it was like a person on crack, not just crazy.
Heliotropes has been called just about everything from shoegaze, doom rock and garage. It's a lot of things, but mostly it's guitar driven heaviness. Like a lot of Brooklyn bands, they sound heavily influenced by that early 90s grunge music. It was heavy, almost sludgey but kept a beat that kept you tapping your foot or doing that thing where you half dance because there aren't enough people in the room to really go nuts.
Heliotropes are touring right now with British rockers Esben and the Witch. They are a three piece from Brighton who make dark, effects driven rock. They call it “nightmare pop,” but it comes across a bit too serious to really seem like pop. It's very heavy and all the effects pedals and equipment they run everything through give it a hard technical edge. Songs build and fall and they definitely get a very epic sound when they get rolling.
Thankfully they received a pretty resounding applause at the end of the night from the crowd. They certainly deserved it.