Brian Slattery Photos
Lawn Chairs.
The Oakland-based Lawn Chairs had just finished sound check at Stella Blues on Wednesday night when the band was given the option to start playing right away or take five minutes.
“I’m a big fan of starting now,” said vocalist and guitarist Billy Bouzos. And the band did.
Lawn Chairs was third in a lineup of four bands playing in-your-face music that rocked a small but energetic crowd at Stella Blues with a jagged immediacy that felt right on a hot summer night.
Ash.
The evening started with Ash, a singer-songwriter from New Jersey who was billed as an acoustic act but found herself plugging in for a set of raw and honest originals interspersed with enthusiastic banter. “This next one is a cover,” she said toward the end of her set, “and if anyone was an emo kid in 2012, I hope you sing along at the top of your goddamn lungs.” A couple people seated near the front of the room fulfilled her wish.
Ash — a.k.a. Harper Prenvo — then turned out to the bassist for the also New Jersey-based alternative hardcore act The Last Martyr. The four-piece — Prenvo, Gia D’Amato on vocals, Marc Shoji on guitar, and Olias Bendian on drums — had an urgent and dynamic sound that combined discipline and energy.
The Last Martyr.
On tour to promote their latest album, New Ends, the band members managed to keep the music tight even as they thrashed onstage. Prenvo and Bendian were a driving rhythm section and Shoji an adept guitarist, yet all three still left space for D’Amato’s powerful voice. D’Amato also proved a more than capable frontperson, whether she was prowling the stage or perched with one foot on the stage monitor like a conquering hero. The Last Martyr’s music was intense, heartfelt, and fun.
The three-guitar onslaught of Lawn Chairs — Billy Bouzos on guitar and vocals, Colin Frost on bass, Andrew Graves on guitar, Mari Campos on guitar and vocals, and Connor Koreski on drums — formed the basis of the band’s sound. With the three guitars set to three distinct tones, Lawn Chairs could bring a full-frequency onslaught, but just as often broke the music down into thoughtfully interlocking parts. “This is our third time in New Haven — our second time being last night.” No report on when the first time was.
Host band Casting Shadows from the eastern part of Connecticut then finished off the evening with a rock-solid set of metal originals. Matt Barnes (vocals), Daniel Jackson (bass and vocals), Chris Ornberg (guitar), Adam Bice (guitar), and Nick Gallagher (drums) had a frighteningly cohesive sound, with Gallagher’s and Jackson’s heavy drumming giving Bice and Ornberg room to fly. Barnes’s luxurious tenor completed the musical package. Together, the members of Casting Shadows brought most of the crowd to its feet. They came close to the stage as Barnes jumped off on it to sing from the darkness of the floor, within arm’s length of the people he was singing to.
Casting Shadows.
“Have you all been enjoying yourselves?” Jackson asked toward the end of the set. By then it was a rhetorical question. The applause from the audience suggested that the room approved of the eight-minute opus that followed to round out the set as Wednesday slipped into Thursday. The music poured out of Stella Blues and filled the block on Crown Street, adding even more heat to the summer air.
