Show Pics: School of Seven Bells @ Mohawk (4/13)

Finally through this last round of shows. It was Friday the 13th, so I wore a hockey mask. Nah, not really.

School of Seven Bells played the Mohawk. A newly refined two-piece, Benjamin Curtis and Alejandra Deheza brought along an extra keyboard player and drummer to fill out their live line up. They also brought along Exitmusic as the opener.

Head past the break and you will get show notes and plenty of pics.

Exitmusic – You will not like this band if you can’t warm to Aleksa Palladino’s vocal. It has growl, a warble, that is powerful and somewhat polarizing. Devon Church and Aleksa (allegedly married) also take extra musicians (Dru Prentiss and Nicholas Shelestak) on tour to fill out the live set. Devon played through a broken guitar string and with a bow. I have a feeling that many in the crowd left impressed and I have it on good word that Aleksa is the nicest person on the planet.

School of Seven BellsAlpinisms was one of my favorite albums from a few years back and SVIIB was one of the first bands I pointed a camera lens on when I attended SxSW day parties of 2009. I was struck by the melodies and the vocal pairing of Alejandra and Claudia. While the current backing vocals of the touring members was solid, and it seemed there were backing tracks to further assist, I did miss the absolute perfection that was the two together. The set featured many of the tracks from earlier works, but Ghostory‘s “The Night” and “Lafaye” were very strong offerings. “ILU” from Disconnect From Desire and “Half Asleep” from Alipinisms were still the crowd favorites. The latter led the encore with “Sempiternal” as the closer.

Don’t get me wrong, SVIIB were true pro’s and they sounded great with a dynamic set list and solid stage presence. I just missed that dynamic of the perfectly matched vocal layers in the live setting.

There are more pics at the photo site

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