Concert Review: School of Seven Bells

The problem with small venues is the audience.

There’s the guy who’s way more enthusiastic about dancing than everybody else in the room, there’s the people who think it’s okay to talk loudly during the show and there’s the people who think it’s perfectly fine to walk to the front of the stage and stand in front of people a foot shorter than they are.

Luckily, when School of Seven Bells played the Larimer Lounge Friday night they were good enough to distract from all the surrounding inanity.

Unfortunately, their opening act Active Child was not.

The problem with an artist like Active Child performing live is that he doesn’t have much to do. The man behind the band, Pat Grossi, is an ex-choirboy with a voice that is angelic and otherworldly. But strong vocals Friday evening did not make up for an inability to contribute much else live.

Grossi played harp in a few songs, which is indeed fairly unique, but rather than contributing anything really interesting to Grossi’s sound, it comes off as pure novelty.

The noise that Grossi gets from his harp can be produced just as easily on guitar. Beyond the harp, he had a bassist playing, which didn’t add much to the tone of his music. The rest of the backing instrumentation from Active Child is done on a computer or keyboard and, while it sounds good, it’s boring.

There’s nothing wrong with creating music that relies heavily on electronic and computer elements, but it would be better in concert if the key elements from the songs were performed on a live instrument.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was School of Seven Bells, a dream-pop trio who rely heavily on electronic textures and manipulations on their records, but found a way to recreate their music for a live setting. Instead of just pushing some buttons on a drum machine they hired a live drummer, and instead of relying on pre-recorded and computerized sounds, guitarist Benjamin Curtis (formerly of the Secret Machines) found a way to play the music on his guitar. Elements like these make SVIIB incredibly dynamic live.

The rich vocal harmonies of twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza sounded just as lush live as they do on their two records. But the real highlight of their act was watching Curtis play.

The Deheza twins reveal their love for music a little more subtly than Curtis, keyboardist/vocalist Claudia smiling as she performed as lead singer/guitarist Alejandra swayed and pulsed.

But neither of the lovely, doll-like ladies conveyed the same fervor as Curtis. The lead guitar sometimes fades into the background on their records, though less so on their recently released sophomore album “Disconnect from Desire,” but live it crashed to the forefront of their sound. Curtis writhed and flailed as he played, almost as if he had been possessed by some fantastic demon.

Performances during which the artists seem to just be jukeboxes playing track after track are not only boring but also pointless. It makes the audience wonder what prompted them to become musicians in the first place. Bands like School of Seven Bells are great live because their vigor and passion show that they aren’t just playing for a paycheck; they’re playing because they love what they do.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Jenny Gumbert at Jenny.gumbert@colorado.edu.