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Tour Dates
04/08 - Chicago, IL – Subterranean 04/09 - Cleveland, OH - Happy Dog East 04/10 - Middletown, CT -Wesleyan College 04/11 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby's All Right 04/12- Manhattan, NY - Cake Shop Read More
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Opener Nancy's Raygun, a guitar/drums duo who I previously described as very young band who had over 40 min of material to play... however for Monday's night, they only played for about 25 minutes.
Danger Ron & The Spins
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Happyness (singer/bassist Jonny Allan, singer/guitarist Benji Compston and drummer Ash Cooper) came on stage a little after 10pm to do soundcheck. After an ear-piercing noise, which woke up everyone at the bar, singer Jonny Allan apologized and said, "That's why we do soundchecks."
Much of Happyness' set was taken from their debut album Weird Little Birthday, originally released on an indie label called Weird Smiling - however the trio recently signed to Moshi Moshi Records in the UK and Bar None Records in the USA and they've decided to re-release the album last month (March 2015) in time for their USA tour, starting with SXSW 2015 (which we covered), and a little later at Burgarama IV (which we also covered).
Benji probably thought the audience weren't familiar with the band, so he introduced themselves as, "We're from England, we're English." Then a little later introduced Jonny on guitars and "Ashley" on drums. Near the end of their set, as they were thanking us for coming out, the fans who remembered was shouting out Johnny and Ashley.
A few other things to note about the two guitarists, they would often switch position and traded off lead vocals. Sometime Jonny would also switch to keys, at least for their song "Pumpkin Noir".
The band also confessed that, "We like doing quiet songs", as an introduction to another 'quiet' song called "Baby, Jesus (Jelly Boy)".
Hearing them talk about their few weeks in the USA, they clearly had too much fun in Texas (SXSW), telling us about how Benji talked to a Neo Nazi guy who made him hold his pistol. They called him "Big Tex" and dedicated their set finale song "Montreal Rock Band Somewhere" to him.
Stepping off the stage for less than a minute, the band came back on stage for the inevitable encore. Since they only originally played a 30-min set, they promised us that they were going to "draw it out as long as we can" for their encore song "Weird Little Birthday Girl".
Look for Happyness' Weird Little Birthday reissue now on Moshi Moshi Records and Bar None Records. The trio is wrapping up their USA tour, ending in New York's Cake Shop.
Happyness at Turf Club, St Paul (06 April 2015) |
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