After a parking fee and a guest list issue took most of my drinking money, I got into Mercy Lounge as Natalie Prass was wrapping up her set. Nothing could be seen from the back except some dark bangs onstage peeking over the heads of the crowd.
Mikky Ekko, face paled with paint and clad in a D.A.R.E. shirt, took the stage next to cast a brooding audio shadow over everybody. The dark ambience of Ekko’s set put some front-of-the-house listeners in a kind of trance even stronger than my suspicion that pretty much everyone in the room was attracted to him. His eerie alt-rock resonated with Beatles-like vocal harmonies (“I Love You”), electronic glitches and tribal beats (“Who Are You, Really?”). The best out of the set was probably the gorgeous “Nothing Wrong With Your Love.”
Guitar-and-drum duo Action! were up next with guitarist/vocalist Robyn Burns’ attire resembling that of a Grimm’s fairy tale spinster (nothing wrong with that). Her piercing vocals cut prettily through guitar fuzz on songs from last year’s LP Friend Weakend, including “Sandpiper” and “This Is Your Summer.” Heypenny joined them onstage to close the set with the bouncy, key-driven, Munchkinland sort of ditty “In The Basement Corner.”
As for the gentlemen of the hour, their set was as expected. Amid piles of stacked TVs onstage, the band kicked off with the buzzing-bass anthem “Purple Street,” track one off of new LP A Jillion Kicks. Heypenny headbands circulated and at one point, an overflow of pink and blue balloons was unleashed over the crowd. Frontman Ben Elkins, dressed like some strain of a Star Trek character, delivered in his signature pinched, erratic vocals old crowd-pleasers like “CopCar” (from their last EP) and “Parade.” And pleased they were – most of the audience maintained at least a minimal shuffle throughout a set filled with the stuff of the new release. Danceable beats, outrageous vocal stamina, pretty balloons, lyrical wit and an all-around madman allure = a solid album release. – Jessica Pace