Car Seat Headrest @ The Rosemount Hotel
w/ Spacey Jane
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Car Seat Headrest came and conquered on Sunday evening. Frontman Will Toledo brought a large band of merry men to the Rosemount Hotel, backed by his own musos plus Seattle’s Naked Giants. The supergroup put on a master-class in musicianship. Harmonies, solos and heaps of percussion; it felt more like watching seasoned veterans than indie start ups.
Earlier, Fremantle’s Spacey Jane warmed up the ever-increasing crowd. Then Car Seat Headrest‘s set started with a Naked Giants song, which saw Toledo on keys. It was pumping and the (I’d hazard to guess) mostly unknowing crowd showed their support for these unknown people singing an unknown song. After that got out of the way, Will stepped up to centre stage to great applause. Starting with a song off of newly re worked and re-released Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) the energy increased. But when Fill In The Blank started the crowd went wild.
Highlights included Cute Thing, a segue into Neil Young’s Powderfinger that would have made Crazy Horse proud, a massive singalong in Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales, and Destroyed By Hippie Powers, which had everyone singing too. Actually anything from Teens of Denial had the crowd and band in joyful chorus. The only complaint from the night would be that it seemed to peak with Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales and perhaps that song could have been moved towards the end of the set. The only reason this hasn’t got a 10/10.
A quick encore and Car Seat Headrest and Naked Giants were out. The crowd was buzzing. Earlier in the week I missed Roger Waters, but surely this will be in contention for gig of the year. Pure rock and roll entertainment.
BILL BUCKINGHAM
