My favorite thing about going to shows night after night is catching local bands that I’ve never heard of before. I honestly wasn’t super in the mood for a show on Monday night (I know, that sounds weird for me to say, but it’s already been an odd week), but I knew that I would be treated to three new bands I knew nothing about and one that I just can not get enough of right now. In the mood or not, I knew that Zhora Darling was the place to be on Monday night.
Not Your Baby was first up. Hailing from Northeast Minneapolis, Not Your Baby’s style ranged from ’90s-induced alt-rock to more commercial indie-pop. I liked the versatility of the style of this band, but it was the three-part vocal harmonies that really got me going. Some moments throughout the opening set had chills chasing up my spine in such a beautiful way, but others left me a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this band and definitely think there’s potential, but there were definitely some pains in their set to me. I felt that something was just off. Maybe it was the tuning of a guitar, or it was because I thought that the drummer could have been hitting a bit harder to really give Not Your Baby’s songs a better feeling of structure and power. I honestly don’t know what it was. What I do know is that this band has me intrigued, and maybe Monday night was just an off night for them, or maybe it goes back to being an off night for me. Regardless, I hope to have another night with Not Your Baby soon.
Following Not Your Baby was Absolutely Yours. Although it took me a second to settle into their shoegaze dream pop, when I did, it was a beautiful thing. Soft vocals matched with intricate instrumentation was the name of the game with this band, and it’s a game that they are playing so well. Sure, there were moments when I felt that the vocals were a bit flat, but again, something about my mood made me feel a bit snarky and judgmental. Looking back on their set from Monday night, I realize it may not have been perfect, but it was perfectly beautiful. Absolutely Yours has one of those sounds that is so easy to get lost in. It can be soft and sweet if that’s the way you want to take it, or it can be powerful and full of subtle rage if that fits your mood a bit better. Either way, Absolutely Yours, like Not Your Baby, definitely caught my attention on Monday night and is yet another band to add to my list of acts to keep on my radar.
The sole touring act of the night – Big Pinch- was up next. Hailing from Boulder, Colorado, this four-piece may look young, but they play like seasoned professionals. Their sound is as eclectic as the opening acts, bridging the gap between indie pop and almost a jam rock mentality. Maybe it is because they are from Colorado, and I assume everyone in Colorado listens to jam-based music, but I felt that in their set. There was a sense of organic freedom in some of their tracks that left me wondering if certain parts of what they were playing were actually part of their songs or more just riffing between the members. Either way, I found Big Pinch to be as tight as they were energized as they treated the super-good-for-a-Monday audience to their unique and flawless sound. They were good enough that I could look past the fatal mistake of calling Minneapolis “Mininapolis” (if you know, you know).
Closing out the Monday night show was local rockers Time Room. There was a time when I felt like I was seeing this band every couple of months, but it has been a hot minute at this point since the last time I saw them, and I was thrilled to see that, although still Time Room, this band has amped up their game ever so slightly. The most obvious sign of this “amp up” was the addition of a keyboardist. Although, before Monday night, I couldn’t see a keyboardist adding anything remarkable to this band’s already unique sound, I understood why it worked the second they kicked into their quick set on Monday night. The keys added an almost mechanical sound to this band’s otherwise surf-punk-inspired tone, and I feel like it took Time Room’s sound to another dimension. The keys were more prominent than I thought they would be, and by the time Time Room was kicking into their third song, I couldn’t help but wonder why it took them so long to add this element. It was so lovely to see Time Room again for the first time in a hot minute and see that, even with the change, it’s still Time Room in all of their quirkiness and catchiness.
Was I harsh in my critique of some of the bands that performed on Monday night? Yes. But here’s the deal. You can’t win them all, and, at the end of the day, I’m human, much like the performers on stage. We all have our off days where no matter what we do, we can’t shake a feeling. Maybe it’s something eating away at us that we don’t talk about, or maybe it’s just the stress of being alive in such an insane time. Regardless, I write about how I feel. I write about what I see and what I hear. Although I will always be nice (unless someone truly shits the bed or pisses me off), I will also always be honest. None of the bands on Monday night at Zhora Darling were bad, and I truly loved all four of them and hope to see them all again very soon.
Line Up:
Venue: Zhora Darling
Smell-O-Meter: Nothing Notable
Average Age of the Crowd: 32
Crowd Surfers- 0
Stage Divers- 0
Dance-ability- 2 out of 10
Amount of Beer Spilled On Me While Walking Around- 0
Broken Bones- None Noticed
Spotted Flying Through The Air- Nothing
Fights- None Witnessed
Pukers- 0
Passed Out People- 0
Idiots Taken Out By Security – 0
How Many Times I’ve Seen These Bands Before (or at least how many times I can remember)-
Not Your Baby – 0
Absolutely Yours – 0
Big Pinch – 0
Time Room – 3
Celebrity Sightings – Members of Unstable Shapes and Shrimp Olympics
Overall Score – 8 out of 10
Show on Deck —Grim Lot / Extraterrestrials / Fairer Sands
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