Fire Marshal Delays Snowden Concert

We were waiting patiently for Atlanta rockers Snowden to return to the stage to begin their set, when a voice came over the speaker asking the crowd to be quiet. The chatter of the crowd continued on. Without having a face, or giving a reason for his request, the voice had a difficult task ahead of him. Eventually the crowd silenced as it was announced that a fire marshal would need to check if Mercury Lounge was beyond capacity. Surely enough, the man behind the mysterious voice filtered through the crowd, quickly counting the heads of the considerably polite audience. Soon enough, all the heads were counted and Snowden was able to take the stage, with lead singer Jordan Jeffares thanking the crowd for being patient. We were all lucky that there weren’t too many of us, because that surely would have been a problem, and probably wouldn’t have gotten to see Snowden’s great set.

After all of the hullabaloo, Snowden rapidly made everyone forget about the extended wait, starting with a sped up version of “Bullets.” For the second night in a row, a NYC crowd not known for dancing was again moving their feet and shaking their hips. The ultra catchy post punk songs from their debut record “Anti-Anti,” played like a poppier Interpol. A good amount of promising new material made its way into the set, but favorites like “Anti-Anti” and “Filler is Wasted” were the highlights of the set. Bassist Corinne Lee, whose bass lines are often the band’s greatest strength, played with an excellent fury that gave the performance an extra jolt to make it quite memorable.

Snowden

Snowden

Prior to Snowden’s performance and the fire marshal interruption, it had already been a pretty good show.

Beginning the night off, Bell exhibited their dreamy pop. Russian born singer Olga Bell, who now makes her home in Brooklyn, has a sound that will draw comparisons to Björk. Her voice doesn’t quite reach anywhere near the heights of the Icelandic pixie, but with the help of vocal effects and echoes and an interesting backing band, the cute singer put on a pleasurable performance. At her best during the poppier songs like EP opener "Echinacea," Bell's most unexpectedly entertaining moment came with a really fun cover of Skeelo’s “I Wish.”

Bell

Bell

The Epochs followed, failing to blow my mind, but did prove to be promising local Brooklyn band to keep an eye on.

The Epochs

Mississippi natives Colour Revolt were the real highlight of the night. The band’s raw driven rock pummeled its way though the crowd, hammering its way into our heads. I couldn’t help but hear a lot of similarities to Canada’s The Constantines, but Colour Revolt has more of that grungy southern blues in their sound. Their full length debut “Plunder, Beg and Curse” was released earlier this year, helps make them one of 2008’s best new additions to the indie music scene.

Colour Revolt

Colour Revolt

Photos by [Jonny-Leather]