The Devil Makes Three

Echoplex - October 15, 2009

Live Review by Amber Henson

Some songs take awhile to infuse themselves into the deepest depths of your cerebellum.  You hear a song on TV, the radio, or at a friend’s house, and days later it comes back to say "I’m here and I’m now your favorite new song."  Other songs are instant.  The second you hear them, they capture you, your imagination, and everything you hold dear.  You immediately want to listen to the song repeatedly, no matter the consequences.

“All Hail” by The Devil Makes Three - from their recently released album, Do Wrong Right - is of the second category.  It didn’t take me more than thirty seconds after opening their MySpace page to demand tickets to their concert at the Echoplex in Los Angeles. 

The three musicians - singer/guitarist Pete Bernhard, guitarist/singer Cooper McBean, and upright bassist Lucia Turino - took the stage humbly, sporting jeans for all three, a pony tail for Turino, and a jaunty hat for McBean.  After playing in blinding spotlight for the first three songs, Bernhard asked to have them turned down.  The mostly empty stage was bathed in red.

The crowd was going wild for them. Bernhard was the only one who spoke to the delighted audience, and he didn’t do that very often.  Mostly they just played, and damn did they play.  They played a total of twenty songs before going offstage, then played us one more for the encore.  Bernhard and McBean switched guitars often, sometimes simple acoustics, sometimes more rockabilly acoustics, and both of them had turns at the tenor banjo.  But out of the three, it seemed Turino was having the most fun.  She seemed to really be enjoying herself on the upright bass, sometimes having her own little dancing time when they really got going, which the crowd appreciated.  Many responded with swing-ish dancing of their own.  It was more movement I’ve seen out of an LA crowd since The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies last year.

When DMT played “Old Number Seven,” the audience breathed a sigh of relief; they’d been begging for it.  I found their rendition of my other new favorite song, “Do Wrong Right,” much more enjoyable, even without the violin part.  The Devil Makes Three is made of up of three very talented people who have come together to make a band greater than their sum, and they currently have captured me whole.