11/08/09 Aquarium* Fargo, ND
11/09/09 Waiting Room* Omaha, NE 11/11/09 Brick Kansas City, MO 11/29/09 Oxford O2 Academy 3, UK 11/30/09 Relentless Garage London 12/01/09 Thekla Bristol, UK 12/02/09 Wedgewood Portsmouth, UK 12/03/09 Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh 12/04/09 Bodega Nottingham, UK 12/05/09 Brickyard Carlisle, UK 12/06/09 King Tut’s Wah Wah Glasgow 12/07/09 Ruby Lounge Manchester, UK 12/08/09 Plug Sheffield, UK 12/09/09 Academy 2 Dublin, Ireland 12/10/09 Stiff Kitten Belfast, Ireland 12/12/09 Concorde 2 Brighton, UK 12/13/09 Barfly Cardiff, UK * with Bang Bang Eche Read More |
Parking in the college area known as "Dinkytown" in Minneapolis can be kind of hard, especially when the meters on 4th
Street runs until 10pm. I didn't mind walking a few blocks to the
beautiful Varsity Theater as the weather was nothing less than perfect
that Friday evening.
Opening up for Har Mar Superstar are three very different genre and acts. Starting with
Koo Koo Kangaroo (official / myspace), whose music styling is that of hip hop - for toddlers. Their songs are dead simple, like "AOA" (sample lyrics: "aye oh aye oh aye")
and "Cheh Cheh Chi" and "LMNOP", but they're catchy and easy to sing
along. The highlight of their set was when they threw down a white
tarp-like covering and the audience was dancing under it like a party
fort.
Wow, Bang Bang Eche (myspace)
are young. Someone told me that they're about 18 years old, but they
certainly look much younger. Their music is very punk high-energy and
reminds me a bit of Arctic Monkeys influenced. My easily favorite song
from their set is "Fist Full of Dollars", perhaps a reference to Sergio Leone
classic film? They ended their setlist with "Die Hippy Scum". Oh, also,
it's worth noting that bassist T'Nealle sported a three keyboard cat
moon t-shirt. Adorable.
The odd group on the bill was two-person group, Lookbook (myspace).
The band is basically guitarist Grant Cutler, who plays guitars and
handles the pre-recordings, with vocalist Maggie Morrison. Their music
sounds like 80s pop, not exactly the "body-moving" type of music that
you'd think Har Mar's audience would demand. Not really much to say,
except I think Maggie looks really cute and I will be talking about
them in further detail on my "book"-theme news on Sunday.
Har Mar Superstar ♥ Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (11/06/09) |
After the first song, he took off his hat. After "DUI", he took off the overall to reveal a Prince "Purple Rain" shirt. He kept taking off articles of clothing as the night went on. From "EZ Pass", to "Girls Only", to "Creative Juices"... the audience was loving it all.
Har Mar and Melinda Park singing "Powerline" |
By the time "Brothers & Sisters" was played, he inevitably
took off his shirt. The pants disappeared with "Apple Sauce", followed
by "Turn it Around". The finale song was "Tall Boy", which Zach, from
Bang Bang, and some woman called Melinda Park (or was it Mindy Park?)
joined on stage to help sing the song. Park would later turn up again
to help sing one of the encore, "Powerline".
The very last song, Har Mar sang an a cappella version of Boyz II Men's
"It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday". He would pretend the song
ended and everyone would clap... only he would continue to sing the
refrain. After the third false ending and after he said "goodnight", he
came back and sang some more.
Har Mar's latest album is Dark Touches, available from Dilettante Recordings. Read Andrew's review of the album, pick up a copy at amazon
11/07/2009 04:22:06 ♥ vu (
)
♥
harmarsuperstar.com
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