Review: Max Tundra & Deastro – Club Lambi – Monday, November 9th

Before Monday, I hadn’t ever heard of TONSTARTSSBANDHT, so I was kind of skeptical of what their live set would be like, having only heard a song or two on their Myspace page.  Noticeably, they had a musical approach that brought Animal Collective to mind, with passionate vocals belted out over intense electronic beats.  So with their song “Pineapples” — a highly entertaining song, albeit short lived — almost at the end of their set, my first impressions of these guys were gone.  Overall they were entertaining, and worthy of some attention, to say the least.

The next act was London England’s Max Tundra (a.k.a. Ben Jacobs), who I got a chance to meet briefly before the show.  My first impression of Jacobs, was that he had a very calm demeanor and a laid-back and friendly personality. But that would all change as his set started and he transformed into his on-stage persona, Max Tundra.  Jacobs not only put on an intense and entertaining show, but halfway through his first song “Orphaned”, the attendance in the room seemed to have doubled, and were on their feet.  From dancing in and out of vocal and instrumental sections with a handful of interesting instruments, Max Tundra was not only entertaining as a musician, but as a performer as well.  Without stopping too much, Jacobs whipped through his setlist keeping a steady pace, with a selection of songs from his latest album Parallax Error Beheads You.  Before seeing him play my worry was whether he could offer renditions of his songs as deep and intricate as the versions on his album, but he did not disappointed, with his live show not only living up to the album, but making it really come to life.

Lastly, there was Detroit Michigan’s Deastro. I admit I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the performance, but given that frontman Randolph Chabot had only been with his new stage partner, Adam, for a couple weeks (since the departure of his previous backup band) it was a pretty solid performance.  Compared to the material on Deastro’s latest release Moondagger, the songs he played on this night were a little bit rougher sounding, with much of the set consisting of guitar driven tracks, before dipping into some of his more well known songs.  On the one hand, the energy Chabot brought to his live set was very satisfying, but there was a part of me that missed the dreamy, ambient sound of much of his studio work.

At the end of the night, even though not many people showed up, a great time was had by all that did. And those who stayed home really missed out on an excellent night of live music by two of the most exciting artists around today. - Jordan Ghetler

TONSTARTSSBANDHT

Max Tundra

Deastro

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Tags: Deastro, Max Tundra, TONSTARTSSBANDHT