I would like to walk through the above average alleys of Lisbon this evening.
Since I cannot, I’m going to a house show in my friend’s living room. I like music and couches and dinner happening all at once. Rumor has it that the second band is going to play the entirety of Abbey Road. This could be either wonderful or awful. We can only hope for the best, and eat fajitas.
Thursday night I went to the Troubadour in West Hollywood with new friends from my house church. We saw Julia and Angus Stone, the brother-sister duo from Australia who wowwed my proverbial socks right off. Which is fortunate, because I wore sandals.
The girl would break into these crazy harmonica and trumpet accents in between her almost half-serious soulful swooning, while the boy did the same–substituting his surprisingly delicate voice for the girl’s soul. All along they had this familial connection onstage that was not unlike some of the best husband-wife bands that I love. Their’s was just a bit more competitive. At one point Angus re-sang one of Julia’s songs in his little-boyish style, laughing/admitting, “I rewrote this song for Julia. Well, actually I fixed it.”
Julia’s Sound of Music dress and her constant silly fairy/hippy dance added such a lightheartedness that I could overlook how she sometimes sounded too closely of Joanna Newsom or Bjork.
All of their songs sound off about youthful love and simplicity. I like this. Listening to them in that packed little venue was like a quickly-absorbed double espresso shot of happiness on a Thursday night. How nice.
(Lisbon photo by Flydime)