Cafe du Nord has been back for about a year, and I still hadn’t been to a show there. So, I played a little bit of show roulette. I decided to check out something, anything, just to see what the space has become. Lucky for me, Boston’s Bent Knee was playing the night I decided to drop in. A band I’ve been meaning to check out, too! So, my night has been confirmed.
When I walked down the familiar staircase into the venue, I was surprised by the sound emanating from the stage. There was a gutteral growl layered on top of over-driven, slightly syncopated guitars. I don’t know if the band was searching for the polar opposite to open the show for them, but Gatherers’ post-hardcore/screamo sound was the inverse of everything Bent Knee did. Sometimes a stylistically different opener can be a good thing. However, in this case, it just seemed like a bad fit. I couldn’t catch the mood they were going for, and it just didn’t feel good. Maybe this was all on purpose? Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for what they were doing? Either way, they definitely did what they were doing well. If I was waiting for Thursday or Brand New to come on, it would have felt just right. It just wasn’t what I was aiming for that night.
When Bent Knee came on the stage, guitarist and de-facto spokesperson for the band Ben Levin opened the set by talking about the last time Bent Knee played Cafe du Nord. He talked about how the stage was so much roomier (it is), and I noticed how the room itself just felt more “open.”
The band opened up with the intensely dramatic, Black Sabbath meets Nina Simone of “Bone Rage.” Intensely dramatic, of course, is possibly the only way to describe this band. Every song in their 75 minute set had a minimum of four distinctly different sections, spanning from avant jazz to indie pop to R&B to metal to psych, and back again numerous times. Lead vocalist Courtney Swain has one of the most soulful and dynamic voices since Amy Winehouse, tethering the wild chaos of the rest of the band back to the ground. She created a warmth in the dissonance that was simply beautiful.
Of course, the entire band is made up of virtuosos. Violinist Chris Baum played as if he was literally putting his whole body into his instrument. Levin and bassist Justice Cow had the kind of chemistry on stage that most bands don’t get if they’ve played together for decades. Drummer Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth is such a beast that, even though he broke his leg, slipping while undoing his drums, he still played a full set in San Jose the following night.
They ended their set with the epic closer “Land Animals.” It was a beautiful set by an amazing band that I finally checked out, and now I highly recommend that you check them out, too.
