The Bowery Electric played host to APF’s Homegrown show with Animal Talk, VHS Collection, Cheap Satori and goodbyemotel this past Wednesday night. The show celebrated the recent release of goodbyemotel’s new album iF, which came out earlier that week, and was the band’s first gig post-album release. The record took two years to finish, but the wait was well worth it for the band returned to the stage with great new songs and as strong of a performance as ever.

Animal Talk

Boston’s Animal Talk opened the night with indie pop that you can’t help, but dance to. Songs like “Mama Was A Teenage Rocker” and “Tie Me Up” had the audience shuffling along right from the start. There’s something truly infectious about their combination of pervasive drums and soft vocals that keep you bopping along. “Dirty Feelings,” which opened their set, showcased vocalist/guitarist Steven Kilgore’s impressive range. He floated up to the high notes in “Monster” with ease. The band’s original work was a lot of fun to jam along to, but perhaps the unexpected highlight of Animal Talk’s set was their cover of “Poison.” It was a welcome surprise that drummer Greg Faucher gave away as soon as he began those telltale opening bars on the drum machine. Kilgore again rose to the occassion, singing the Bell Biv DeVoe classic with no difficulty.

Cheap Satori took the stage next to deliver PJ Harvey-esque piano-driven indie rock. It was a step down in energy when compared to Animal Talk, but the band showed potential at a different speed. At one point during their set keyboardist Graham Corrigan and vocalist Katie Dranoff paired off to play the first song they had written as a band, leaving the other band members Daniel Halasz, Zachary Gould and Zachary Romano to greet the small army of friends/family that awaited them in the audience.

goodbyemotel

The main act, goodbyemotel, came next. A healthy crowd had gathered, which included vocalist Gustaf Sjodin Enstrom’s family from Sweden. Bassist Tom Marks and the rest of the band had to quiet the crowd and did so somewhat successfully. Marks laughed at the instinctive “shhhh!” that quickly spread through the audience, adding, “Don’t you just love a good shush?” before launching into the iF opening track “Hurricane.” The first thing you notice about the song and much of the album is the drums. Paul Amorese’s imaginative and booming drum lines are easily one of the best parts of a goodbyemotel show. Another notable part was David Schmidt’s twinkling piano in “Set It Off” off of the band’s EP People. It was the only track they included off of their old release. Mainly and understandably the band played off of iF, including songs like “The Fall” and “Please Rewind.” They then played the second unexpected cover of the night and seamlessly bled the final measures of “Bending Shadows” into Radiohead’s “No Surprises.”

VHS Collection

The show ended with electronic indie rockers VHS Collection. Inevitably some of the crowd had filtered out by that point in the night, but vocalist/guitarist James Bohannon, guitarist Conor Cook, keyboardist Nils Vanderlip and drummer Adam Benha played on. It was another short set, but Bohannon sang with raspy vigor, gripping the mic with all his might. They opened with rhyme-heavy, unexpectedly catchy “Lean On Your Friends.” The band will be playing another show at Drom on December 12th, which will be well worth attending if their Bowery Electric appearance is any indication of the quality of their live show.

-Zoe Marquedant