Show Review: Hospitality @ Red 7 (2.17)

It’s surprising that I hadn’t seen Hospitality before last night, as we first posted (and adored) about the band back in 2011.  But, that being said, I was rather stoked to see the band as they blew into Austin this past Monday night instead of Milking Neutral Hotels, whatever that means.  Little did I know that it would be one of the openers that stole the show. 

Read on for my thoughts and BGray’s photo magic.

Austin’s Modrag started our night off at Red 7, and it was a pretty energetic set from the local boys. I hadn’t really heard much from the band since they put out their split 7″ last year with Chalk (see the killer track “Ammite Diem”), but it’s clear that they’ve got enough rocking tracks to start getting together another release.  You could describe them as a band with a little bit of everything cool; be it garage, psych, americana, it’s all there, and it’s executed rather well.  I was definitely impressed with their set, which left me salivating for more good things to come.

The surprise of the night came from Air Waves, who haven’t really put out anything since 2010’s Dungeon Dots.  But, in a very brief conversation, I found that there were some line-up changes and a current recording to ready new material. And, lucky for those in attendance, we were treated to a set that relied heavily upon the new material.  I have to give it up to the band; they were by far the most energetic and tight-knit band of the evening.  Every note rang out perfectly from Nicole’s guitar, and she seemed to really be enjoying the night, despite claiming to be under the weather.  Sure, I can complain that I didn’t know all the songs, but it’s only going to make me long even more for that next release. 

When it comes to Hospitality, I was actually a little disappointed in their set.  The first half of the set had some struggles with instruments and miscues, plus they absolutely sucked the life out of “Friends of Friends” They put a jazzy spin on it, and in doing so, the hook was removed, leaving the song as a sad rendition of its former self.  Then Amber took over on guitar, and the band slowly started to find a groove after playing “Rockets and Jets.”  But, the thing that perhaps was most disappointing wasn’t that the sound was bad, or even that they had a bad show, rather the set seemed fairly lifeless. Amber seemed completely indifferent to the goings-on that she presented on stage, that is until she came out by herself at the end of the evening.  Maybe I just read too much into a musician’s body language, but she just wasn’t thrilled. It’s a good thing Trouble is such a great listen, otherwise I’d be willing to complain even more.

Photoguy notes: Sorry for the delay, real world getting in the way of getting these pics up sooner…