I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the guitarist of Sleigh Bells Derek Miller. Aside from giving me a great interview, he told me a few off the record stories that were extremely funny and I recommended him Cane’s for a bite to eat.
I also got to go to their show, which I must say is probably the best one I’ve seen at the Varsity. The opening band, who I forget the name of, was pretty sub-par. The second band, CSS a Brazilian band fronted by a small, spunky girl, were awesome. They were pretty tame aside stripping on stage, jumping into the crowd, and generally going nuts.
Finally, the headliner was set to come on. A literal wall of speakers were set up, and I was pretty excited. I’ve heard their shows were loud, but I didn’t realize I’d see a wall of amps. The lights went down, the crowd cheered and then something unexpected. Some “cookie monster” vocals backed by thrashing guitars. Not exactly the stylized pop rock sounds of Sleigh Bells, more like Poison the Well, Miller’s first band.
After about five minutes of that, the opening chords of “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath played. Finally the band we all came to see came out on stage, Miller wearing a plaid shirt, black jeans, and some hardcore band’s t-shirt and his counterpart Alexis Krauss in a custom “Bells” jersey that looked a whole lot like a Chicago Bulls jersey.
Their show was a blur of strobe lights, flashes, sound and bass. It was gritty, dirty and too much fun. Every song seemed louder than the one before it, and the entire crowd sang along to their more popular songs “Infinity Guitars” and “Tell ‘Em”. Well worth the ticket price, can’t wait to see them again.
CHRISTIAN GRIMALDO
Entertainment writer
THATS your review? seriously? it was ‘gritty, dirty and fun.’ Thats it?
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