A B & The Sea

Echo - Sept. 30, 2010

Live Review by Amber Henson

Waiting for the concert to begin at The Echo, a small club in what amounts to the hipster capitol of Los Angeles, I noticed a guy walk by who was wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and slacks.  He had dirty blond hair and heartbreaker eyelashes.  I leaned over to my friend and told her that was the kind of guy I would have a crush on when I was nine.  She laughed.  Imagine my surprise when five minutes later, Heartbreaker climbed the steps to the stage and began strumming at his guitar.  This, of course, turned out to be Koley O’Brien, the lead singer of A B & The Sea, and he and the rest of the band proceeded to thoroughly charm their audience.

The band isn’t all about their looks, though.  These are five guys who clearly enjoy making their indie surf pop sound.  They only had time for about eight songs, but in them they showed off quite a range, from fun dancing beats to sweet ballads.  O’Brien flirted with the audience between songs, asking people to come closer and being genuinely thankful when some obliged.  The rest of the band kept to the background, smiling sheepishly.

I have to say that I enjoyed this concert immensely.  I was a little worried, because I had over-listened to their addictive EP, Boys and Girls, but they were able to bring all the magic of first hearing those tracks back to me.  And their new tracks that will be on their forthcoming album sounded great.  O’Brien’s voice is almost exactly what you hear on the album, which, these days, is such a relief.  The backup vocals, from the bassist and the keyboardist, were difficult to hear, but perhaps it was just them being shy or not having their mics turned up enough.  It was quite cute when they sang “Yellow Haired Girl”, starting and ending the song with that classic “do-doo-run-run-run, do-doo-run-run.”

I think what I liked most of all was that they hit that perfect combination of being a live show with all that entails, while still sounding similar to the album.  They had the perfect guitars for that '60s sound, and for their last song, their single “Bone Dry,” O’Brien busted out an acoustic, complete with taped over hole and strings that he hadn’t bothered to trim.  The sound, combined with their joy in playing, resulted in one of the best concerts I’ve been to this year.