Baltimore may be a town with many and varied stages, but 2640 Space is surely its most unique. An affiliate of Red Emma’s — the Mount Vernon bookshop with a Communist motif — and housed in St. John’s Methodist Church, 2640 St. Paul Street seemed a fitting venue to gather and celebrate (or, perhaps for some, worship) an eclectic bill of three local talents.
Headliners Celebration called on Arbouretum and Future Islands to open for them, on the occasion of the release of their latest album, Electric Tarot: Hello Paradise. Concertgoers slowly filed in to the sold-out show, greeted by an alcohol-free bar and clusters of balloons and cotton balls, hanging from the ceiling like clouds against the buttressed ceiling.
Arbouretum was first up, with a short set that still managed to showcase the range of their repertoire.
Through their five LPs, Arbouretum has proven, despite their somewhat standard lineup of guitar/bass/drums/keys, that they can still do much with their garage and folk-rock influenced sound.
Though singer and guitarist David Heumann holds his post to the left of center-staged bassist Corey Allender, his purely old-fashioned vocals and riffs root each tune.
While their music was enjoyable, the band’s energy was somewhat lacking, especially when compared to their stage successors Future Islands.
Future Islands’s front man J. Gerrit Welmers is arguably equal parts method actor and musician. After a brief introduction, remarking how happy he was to open for his friends Celebration, he locked eyes with some distant point and began convulsing. I turned to my friend and wondered aloud if he was feeling okay.
As he began singing in his singular, almost villainous cartoon-like manner, he would alternate between slapping his chest and face to the beat of the bass and synthesizer.
Welmers’ incredibly intense performance, relative to the stoic nature of his bandmates William Cashion and Samuel Herring, was entertaining to the point of being humorous.
The band’s set, however, was the antithesis of laughable and by far the strongest of the night, all bias aside.
The trio played seven songs, including popular ones such as “Inch of Dust,” “Vireo’s Eye” and “Tin Man,” interspersing them with equally strong brand new tunes. For one of the new songs, Welmers brought Celebration’s singer Katrina Ford on stage, their voices mingling with the utmost harmony against the electronic accompaniments.
Future Islands sounds just like they do on their records, if not better, live.
After the second and final change over, belles of the ball Celebration took the stage. They opened with a purely instrumental number, in true psychedelic-blues fashion.
Towards the end, Ford entered with her tambourine and took control of her band for the rest of the set. Drummer David Bergander carefully followed the motions of her wrist as Celebration launched into “Battles,” a personal favorite off the new album. Ford has a beguiling and incredibly powerful voice that, like Welmers’, astounds a live audience.
If Celebration is more than a modern day soul band — and indeed they are — it can be chalked up to the band’s inventiveness, largely on behalf of multi-instrumentalist Sean Antanaitis.
Antanaitis wields an impressive total of six instruments, one of which appeared to be part-accordion, part-fire starter. (Wikipedia tells me it might be a Guitorgan.)
Celebration’s songs can be long however, without much variation, and after a while one’s back begins to feel the wear of such constant swaying.
All in all, the three bands were very strong and, billed together, provided an enjoyable contrasting of sounds for the evening.
However, if the extreme moshing during Future Islands’s set was any indication, the post-wave trio was the most well-received group of the evening.
Though Celebration was lovely, I would have to agree.
