Minh Vuong
MUSIC 104-01
Concert review #1
Kletz Coffeehouse Band Performance
On September 19th this year, I experienced the best student band concert I have ever seen. That day, some of my friends asked me if I want to go with them to Kletz at 9 for a little coffee and some music. It was a Thursday night and I still have tons of unfinished homework, but for some reason I still decided to go with them. There were a lot of people there, and all of them were doing homework. After 5 minutes, I’ve already wanted to go back to my room. However after that, a guy introduced the band that is going to play for tonight and I decided to stay for just one song. For some odd reason I don’t remember the band’s name, maybe because what memorable is about their music and not their name. So from now I will call them “Good music but forgettable name” or “GMBFN” for short. Just like a normal student band, they weren’t dressed up or used any props. They just wore their normal, casual clothes that they might wear in class that morning. The first song they were playing is pretty slow and the genre was alternative rock. At first I tried to listen to the words to find out if I knew that song, and then I realized it was an original song, their original song. It was pretty neat for a band to play its own song although that first song was a little bit uncreative and plain. So I stayed for the second song to give GMBFN a second chance, this time it was another original song. It was a lot better than the first one though; the lead vocal’s voice was really shown in this song. I noticed his voice was really strong but somehow still sounded a bit tired. If I closed my eyes, I could feel that his voice had a lot in common with the voice of Kurt Cobain from Nirvana. This time there was one more member of GMBFN that showed up; he looked very Irish with dark brown hair and white skin, wearing a little bowtie on his neck. For a quarter of the song he didn’t do anything, just awkwardly stood there putting on his chap-stick. And then the chorus came, that guy pulled out his trumpet and play it. My mind was BLOWN by his trumpet (no pun intended). One part was because I had never seen a trumpet playing in a rock performance before, one part was because the trumpet sound really blended with the sound the other members of GMBFN were playing. As I mentioned before, their clothes choice was a little bit random, and it gave me the sense that they are stranger playing separate parts of a song. But now with the trumpet guy, it was show much different. The trumpet was like a catalyst that helped the band mixed together to create a wonderful chemical. In the whole performance my eyes stuck to the guys playing the trumpet. In the next song, he even used a French horn and a trombone and he did a really, really good job. Everyone stopped doing their homework and cheered for GMBFN. In the end, people also asked for another one. GMBFN’s interaction with the audiences was very interesting. At one point the lead vocal even told the audiences that he forgot the word to his own song, but nobody can notice because it was their original song. Finally, they finished their song and tell the audiences to go back home and study. It was about 10 and I realized I still had one essay and one reading assignment to do. I asked the name of the trumpet playing guy before heading home. He told me his name was Dylan, Dylan Kerfoot. That is a pretty difficult name to remember but I am sure I won’t forget it in a long time. The performance was amazing, it would have been better if they have a keyboard player in my opinion. I would pay to experience that small concert again but sadly it was free. I came back home to finish my homework and had to stay up until 2am. It was really tired but I was worth it.