Wavves Keep It Short

Early hype is a bitch, particularly when you have to tour and prove you're worth all the bits and bytes that bloggers have spent on you.

San Diego's Wavves (a.k.a. Nathan Williams), who just released his sophomore album a few weeks ago, have even more to prove. Unlike a group like Black Kids, who are very easy to picture live, Wavvves was recorded by Williams alone, and a good chunk of the songs are just noise jams. But along with rising to the task of actually performing these tracks, Williams cleverly booked a pair of hotshot acts to open his tour.

This was the debut performance and apparently "second practice ever" for local quartet The Bitters. You'd never know it by the way they played.

Their onstage confidence no doubt comes from the inclusion of Fucked Up member Ben Cook and solo artist Aerin Fogel. Their vocal interplay is the heart of the group and despite being quite green, they already have a pair of really strong songs in their set. Watch out for these guys.

Not everyone in attendance would probably agree, but Minneapolis group Vampire Hands were the absolute highlight of the night.

The vocals are split between guitarist Chris R, bassist Chris B and multi-instrumentalist/noisemaker Colin. In a radical move, all three sing in tune. Generally speaking, Colin lays down a wall of noise, Chris B propels the song, then Chris R noodles away on his guitar.

Picture Black Sabbath's rhythm section fronting a noise-jam band and you'll find yourself somewhere in the quartet's neighbourhood. Their heavy, percussive rock and enthusiastic, no-bullshit performance was a real breath of fresh air given the number of bands who perform with a look of stoned boredom on their faces.

Wavves (or more precisely, Williams and a drummer) hit the stage about 15 minutes early and proceeded to whip through what has to be one of the shortest headlining sets ever.

To his credit, Williams kept the momentum going largely through whoo-ooing between each song. And the young Californian played like he had the ghost of Kurt Cobain in him — loud, sloppy and with enthusiasm.

The audience that packed Sneaky Dee's responded in kind, particularly to "So Bored" and "To The Dregs." By the end, a large contingent were pogoing around at the front of the stage. As his final statement (or more likely due to a lack of material), Williams left the stage after 30 minutes with no encore and his drummer immediately disassembling his kit.

Even with Wavves' popularity on the rise, it's difficult to picture the group playing a venue any larger than Sneaky Dee's. Williams more than proved himself as a performer, but if Wavves ever want to move beyond small bars, they'll have to up the sonic anti on future records.