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3 Bands Rock Hollywood's Music Box

November 9, 2010

Jimmi Carney
3 Bands Rock Hollywood's Music Box

Last week, The Forum was invited to check out a concert at Hollywood's Music Box Theater, featuring the bands Funeral Party, the Generationals, and Two Door Cinema Club.  Here's our run-down of the jams that rocked the Music Box:


Funeral Party

First on stage was the Whittier-based alternative rock group Funeral Party. Named after a song by the Cure, they play a brand of Brit-punk with a sweet tooth; the band's sound would not be out of place in a Liverpool pub (and incidentally, they begin a UK tour next month). Caked in white make-up for the Day of the Dead, Funeral Party played with a feverish verve.  Vocalist Chad Eliot skittered in Jagger-like movements across the stage, his wail backed by a clean set of drums and a frenetic guitar strum.  The  irreverently-titled "NYC Moves To The Sound of LA" garnered several approving shouts from the LA audience and  kick-started a serious 'bow throwing session. Worth checking out if you dig tunes that evoke such revelry.


The Generationals

Disappointing. Uninspired, uninteresting, and a whole lot of other uns.  The usually lively Generationals halfheartedly went through the motions without any real eagerness to play for the Music Box's audience. To be fair, they played a wholly different type of music than their predecessors, but difference does not imply quality, in this case.  As one concert goer remarked, "If you play mellow music at this type of place, you need to be able to emote, and they're just not cutting it". It's too bad, since some of the Generationals' songs have the appeal of breezy, 1960s pop. Maybe it just wasn't their night.


Two Door Cinema Club

There was a palpable change in the atmosphere when an achingly long sound check ended and the headlining act strolled onstage. Irish blog-favorites Two Door Cinema Club began their set by announcing that they had just had In-N-Out for the first time (they didn't like it, eliciting the only boos of the night).  Dispensing with the pleasantries, the electropop/rock group got right down to business.  The live performance not only matched but actually trumped the polished,  studio-produced sounds of the group's songs.  The singer's dulcet tones  and the guitarist's impeccable finger-picking survived studio-to-stage transition, but the bassist's  manic pirouettes across the stage and the drummer's dynamism added an oomph that goes undetected in headphones.


The evening reached its high point with the opening chords of crowd-favorite "What You Know."  With a fervor bordering on religious adulation, the audience belted the lyrics along with the singer. Midway through the hit, the bassist switched strings for synths, dropped a crinkled bass line, and kicked out the strobes. An all-out indie-dance fest ensued. The crowd went (to use an industry term) absolutely ape-shit. "They just blew the roof off the place," yelled one concert-goer, mid fist-pump.


Two encores later, the crowd finally dispersed, tired and sweaty yet giddily animated from the experience. The only gripe? "Someone should've bought them a Double-Double, but animal style." We couldn't agree more.

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