Show Pics: Islands @ St. David’s Episcopal (2/17)

Islands is an Austin Town Hall favorite. Nicholas Thorburn heads the band that creates a wide range of music, poppy in the beginning, maturing as the project continues. Islands came through Austin with Idiot Glee and decided to take a shot at hosting a show in the St. David’s Episcopal Church.

If you get the chance, go to a show in a church. It is all about the acoustics and the ambience. It’s just different.

How different? Read on, I’ll tell you and show you.

Now I prefaced this in the Los Campesinos pics, but lighting is not the church’s strong suit. That’s OK because what light was there was purposefully sparse and set the tone. Opener Idiot Glee had one single light with a red gel on the floor in front of him. Up lit with red, in a church. Hmm…

I liked his set; James Friley’s music takes on a gospel undertone here, but done in a one-bedroom apartment after listening to a lot of Beach Boys albums. Churchwave? No, but it was a knob-turner, keyboard set with layering in which I found the high point to be an instrumental (still trying to find the track name). “Happy Day” was a stand out for me.

Har Mar showed up. Getting the obligatory half-nekkid pic for the twitters, I snapped a pic of them doing their thing.

Islands came out, three lights on now, also adding a projector with a live Oscilliscope beamed onto the pulpit and altar.

Church shows force certain occurrences, like working in words that may not be in the everyday holy vernacular. Penis. Hah, he said penus in a church, but the other interesting thing is the crowd. So subdued, everyone was seated and quiet until mid-set, Nick asked the congregation to “Please rise”. People then swayed in the aisles. It was a break from the weight of the set and of the venue. He then threw out a “you may be seated” to which many did so he followed up by telling everyone he was joking, “just do whatever you want.”

I know it is the new popular song, but “This Is Not a Song” was fantastic. “Swans”, which followed, struck a chord with Nick and Geordie were on piano together. It was dark back there, sorry for not getting an image. No “Rough Gem”.

I did want to stay through the seeing the rest of it, but duty called.

A few more pics at the photo site…