Spacebar

For the second year in a row these poor guys got stuck w/ a venue not so sound friendly during a good time-slot and that really affected my review of them at last year's Anti-pop, so like Gasoline Heart, I decided to also give them another chance .Upon entering Central Station at 12:30 and thinking that my little fling w/ Unknown Hinson might’ve made me miss Spacebar all together, I was relieved to see that it hadn’t.  That gave my overtired assistant Amber time to find a seat and park it with my enormous camera/laptop bag and me enough time to get a beer and relax for a minute.

I noticed that Christian Wilson (Still Naïve, The Lighter Exchange) was no longer a part of the band and it got me wondering if he ever really was in the band or if that was just a ‘lil stint for last year’s festival.  Anyway, while I was ordering my Corona, frontman James Rowand thanked the friends, fans and regulars in attendance for sticking around and the sounds I heard coming out of all the technology in front of and behind him made me turn around and take notice.  Textured, multi-layered, trippy, catchy and groovy are some adjectives that came to mind when describing the songs I witnessed, but it was actually the atmospheric interludes between each song that made the whole set flow.

Spacebar have definitely matured a lot over the year, but it’s becoming more difficult to categorize them, which I like a lot.  The synchronized lighting was a nice added effect and overall, I think that if James would sing in the key that he did for their cover of The Cars’ “Who’s gonna drive you home” instead of holding onto every word that ends in a vowel (kinda like Tom DeLonge and every other emo band does these days) then these guys will start to create sonic soundscapes in a live setting that will be undeniable to all audiences.