Alex Burnet was dancing hard atop his amp. His electric blue guitar shuddered slightly between both hands. His feet bounced back and forth with no particular attention to the seething, sure drumbeat Alexa Ambrose was pushing out behind him. His head bobbed triumphantly before he jumped back to the ground, looked up at the swelling crowd before him, and dropped his guitar with a thud.
The other members of Laundry Day smiled and laughed behind him. As the evening’s opener, they were getting ready for a serious homecoming of sorts, and nothing could bring them down.
That is, a homecoming and a short-term stay. Wednesday night, Connecticut favorite Mates Of State returned to downtown venue BAR for the first performance in a four-week residency there. Kicking the night off with a song from their 2008 album Re-Arrange Us, duo Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel captivated a crowd of around 150 people, pulling local musicians, artists, and eager listeners to the lip of the stage with a forceful musical magnetism.
“Who is from New Haven?” asked Gardner, grinning at the crowd as it continued to grow before the light-flecked stage. A few cheers shot up from the back of the room. Taking it as a sign, she began to play, red-nailed hands flying across a synthesizer as Hammel looked on intently for his cue.
Lucy Gellman Photo
The husband-wife duo was, in some ways, just easing back into an old haunt. Over the past two years, Mates of State — which established serious Connecticut roots in East Haven and Stratford in the early 2000s — has performed at College Street Music Hall, BAR, and Cafe Nine, and small armies of devotees have turned out to see them.
It’s deserved. If there is a band that knows how to celebrate the art of living with joy, this is it. Drenched in jubilant indy rock and art pop sensibilities that leave Blondie and The New Pornographers drinking in a dive bar with each other, Gardner and Hammel marry incredibly tight melodies and witty lyrics for a sound you want to get lost in — and do, especially at a small venue like BAR. Facing each other Wednesday night, the two communicated in a long-held language of eye contact, breaking out in grins that spread to the audience as they threw themselves into drum, synthesizer, and vocal rhapsodies that engulfed the room.
But even as Gardner gave audience members a quick rundown of what the next month at BAR had in store — horns, new bands to open performances, and a “best of” performance — it seemed like more than that. Almost 20 years in (the band was founded in Kansas in October 1997), Mates of State’s performances are like acts of devotion, to musical partnership and the audiences that foster it. As the band ushered in the first notes of “Palomino” from its 2011 Mountaintops, a gaggle of friends on the side of the stage began swaying, mouthing the lyrics as their faces turned slowly upward.
And in the front row, the just-pop-enough-ness was contagious. Members of opening band Laundry Day, poised to drop a new album later this year, bobbed along with the music. Burnet, who had welcomed them with dancing, was still at it. The bar’s signature yellow-pink light caught his face for just a moment. His eyes bounced back at the band, full of fire.
Mates of State will perform for the next three Wednesdays at BAR for its free music Wednesdays. For more, visit the venue’s website.
