Fruit Bats

Amandine

Troubadour - April 12, 2006

Live Review and Photograph by Alexis Roberts

Seeing Amandine, the Swedish indie-pop rockers, on stage for the first time caught me a bit off guard, seeing as how they don’t exactly look like your stereotypical hipsters in ripped jeans and faux-vintage t-shirts.  Instead, it was more like looking at a band in a high school talent show with their youthful awkwardness, seemingly random accordion and fiddle player, and vocalist Olof wearing a fashionable sport coat (that looked like he stole from his dad’s closet).  In other words, they didn’t exactly look very unified.  Once they were playing, though, that all changed—and I think they surprised the audience a bit with their astute music.

Amandine’s set was embellished with fiddle solos, a rich sounding acoustic guitar, and Olof speaking in between songs with murmurs in the audience of “Is that dude Irish?”  By the end of their set, they had definitely gained momentum, and the attention of the crowd was no longer on their cell phones and beers.  A few girls up front were even dancing haphazardly to the last song.

As Amandine was finishing out their set, the balcony lurkers and barflies began to move toward the front of the stage and it seemed as if the crowd doubled in a matter of minutes.  The anticipation for the Fruit Bats was strong.  Eric Johnson took the stage first, singing a little solo tune with his guitar before being joined by the rest of the band.  He would play three songs solo later while the rest of the band sat and relaxed.

I enjoyed that they played many of their slower songs, like “Lives of Crime,” “Earthquake of ‘73” and “Little Acorn.”  A young man nearby begged to differ, however, and fell asleep leaning against one of the amplifiers. 

On stage, the Bats are probably one of the most tame bands to see live.  They all just sort of march in place keeping time to their songs and don’t do anything crazy, even though the drummer has an interesting technique of playing drums and guitar simultaneously.  The audience was just as harmonious, watching with wide eyes and swaying along to the tunes.

After 14 songs, Johnson thanked the crowd and said good night.  As the Bats left the stage, the crowd awaited an encore—sure enough, they got one that included a handful of older songs.  Once finished, everyone slowly trickled out of the Troubadour feeling good and chattering about an awesome set.