Exploded View/Gentle Leader XIV

  Her eyes....all her expression was concentrated on her eyes.  Exploded View broods loudly. And still Annika as stoic as ever.  The music is naturally movement inducing.  Perhaps I forgot how all her expression is in her eyes, and they were always gazing towards the back of the audience, not at anyone specific. Her slightest reaction to anything was fascinating to behold. Someone in the audience did this exclamation that caught her attention and she imitated that very sound.  That was hilarious to me. The slightest acknowledgment of the audience. It meant volumes. She sees us. The fourth wall has its windows and she looks at us as we see her. The state of mind I was in at the moment, perhaps it was best that her eyes did not focus on anyone. It would be like a wax statue from a Vincent Price horror movie suddenly locking eyes on you.
 
This show once I knew of it, the anticipation made the passing of time feel slow.  Meanwhile I familiarize with videos from YouTube.  No More Parties In The Attic I played regularly.  I hear that song and its like the soul train image in my head begins to dance in its tracks.  It just has that relentless, hypnotizing forward motion of a train, with the urgency of a fucking ambulance right behind you. Now, in hindsight I try to write down, reconstruct from fading memory. Its almost like trying to write down a dream. Did I really dream that? The songs that are slows haunt,  like a sad old abandoned building you is re-purpose. Oh look, its been a neighborhood bar once. Old noises you notice....any movement you notice...on a house...we are still on the house metaphor....I use the old muscle car metaphor too many times...When they move slow its not boring, listless. Its Uncle Pauly moving slow because he wants to.  Depression is an old house, a near impossible to destroy structure of your interior castle. You try to re-purpose that shit, because it ain't going anywhere. So this music that conjures up grey, late fall depressive images....perhaps they  frame what is already there. You contain what would otherwise run around wild inside of your mind, or make it work. Go see something that frames it in some shit that may at first sound down, but actually is not.  
 
  On top of being deep, Annika's voice is also kind of robotic steady.  Its not a complaint. I am a fan of Annika and Exploded View. I am trying to describe her voice. She is almost the anchor to all the rest of the moving parts. Her voice usually emerges clear. For the encore, she decided to wander about the Empty Bottle crowd as she played I think Disco Glove. That one starts a fire under your ass. Its a sprint down the block and down some long stairs. The bass fills the room with a vibrating cloud similar in potency to let's say......Fee Lion, only messier....if that makes sense. This was a constant during their entire set, that vibrating bass.
Not one mother fucker on their phones. Hmmm, well.... perhaps I was too damn concentrated on her. Letting Go Of Childhood Dreams hits close to that Katie Jane spot, sweet sad and dark. Like something that you wish you had more than once.  It makes a difference where this first imprint began. It's possible this was played at the show but I recall it best driving home from a friends house finally clearing that space in time to hear this along the way. Besides the title which I can clearly hear her say...there is nothing else I can make out, but the song is mesmerizing and makes you think.

I don't have a specific memory of seeing this one play. I became aware of it later playing it. Another thing that means something to me. Annika collaborated with musicians from Mexico. That makes a huge difference to me. It brings the music closer to me. Some tracks begin to take after buying the CDs, only after taking home a physical product.   So I'm attracted to this because....lets say generally its what's familiar to shit I like and listened before and all that. And I stay because it is not. The differences you discover along the way.
   Gentle Leader XIV was fucking great. They opened the show. The lead singer I remember from her old band Hollows.  They were a fitting opener for Exploded View.  I see the same bleak gray winter skies with them as with Annika's new band.  Interesting combinations of grays and blues. I feel taken to that atmosphere, perfect for autumn, but I am not placed in that depressed mood.....holiday music does that for me. Brings me way down.  Not here. Instead I am a tourist fascinated by where they take me. Fascinated by the colors that I can use. Anyway, so Gentle Leader puts me in the same area code as Annika does. They are not as full of bass as EV. They stroll more than they jog. But that is cool. They have my attention and hold it.  Slo Death is where they seem to sprint. Or at least there is an urgency of a sprint. There is tension from around the corner.   They played first. For me it would have worked best to have them play second. The middle band that played after Gentle Leader and before Exploded View nearly put me to sleep. I just did not get them. I was walking around Empty Bottle desperate to stay awake or to find a parking spot for my ass to sit and dose off. I took a stroll outside to put away in the car the merch I bought. Walking in the cold early November air kept me up.  It was one of them rare gigs when I manage to bring with me my sister and her husband. And they sat and slept. I was embarrassed.  Anyway all was well as soon as the headliner played.  Its weird to have this moment so anticipated finally in the past tense.
Zig