Last night’s lineup at Johnny Brenda’s with Balam Acab, Power Animal, and Gracie can probably be best described as an evening of emotive experimental dance music. It’s always interesting to see how bedroom recording artists transfer their tunes to a live setting on stage in front of an audience. Gracie (a.k.a. Andrew Balasia) brought along his keyboard, a bassists, and a guitarist/percussionist/backup vocalist. Their set certainly had more energy than you’ll find in the eerier recordings, which was a good thing. The trio was able to lock into grooves giving a more humanistic feel to the songs. And the vocal harmonies were a nice surprise. Power Animal also emerged as a three-piece for the evening which is a configuration that we had never seen from them before. Where the band’s former incarnation was more heavily percussive, you’ll find a greater emphasis on the beats and soundscapes that mastermind Keith Hampson creates with his electronic gadgets/toys. Balam Acab (a.k.a. Alec Koone) was the name on the bill that piqued people’s interest since he has only recently started performing out live. However, he has already garnered plenty of praise before anyone had ever really seen him on stage. Koone came out with a very simple setup consisting of mainly a laptop, mixer, iPod and female vocalist. It seemed that a lot of the music was already prerecorded like many artists in this age of technology, but Koone surprisingly did have a delicate yet soulful voice. You can check out our pics from last night HERE. We’d also like to thank our newest contributing photographer Eric Ashleigh who provided the photos. (And you can find more of them from the evening in hi-res format at his website HERE.)
