Mates of State

Music Box - April 23, 2009

Live Review by Amber Henson

I’m not really sure when the last time was that I was looking forward to a concert as much as I was looking forward to the Mates of State show.  After becoming thoroughly and completely obsessed with the most recent Mates of State album, Re-Arrange Us, I asked my roommate, who will feature prominently in this review, to please let me know when their next concert would be. Sometime in January I received an email from him that they would be here in April.  So exciting.

And so the day finally arrived.  My roommate had convinced me it was silly to pay Ticketmaster an extra ten dollars just for peace of mind, but that meant getting there right as the doors opened.  And so, we saw the opening band that was touring with MoS, a three piece called Judgement Day.  They were, to be polite, not my cup of tea.  My roommate pointed out that often the bands they choose to come with them don’t seem to fit.  Judgement Day is two brothers and a drummer.  One of the brothers plays the violin, the other a cello.  Nobody sings.  They play like a hard rock band, but with the wrong instruments.  It’s as if they were taught classically, and then decided they’d like to form a rock band, but weren’t interested in learning new instruments.  The result is a little silly and overdone.

These two brothers showed back up as half of Mates of State, which are really just the married couple Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel.  I was a little apprehensive as they came on, as I had not done my homework for this band: the only album I knew was their most recent.  And it did affect my enjoyment: they only played five songs off Re-Arrange Us out of their set of fourteen.  Although based on what they played, I’m not sure I would really like the other albums.  The older songs are a little simpler, not quite as fleshed out.

The weirdest part was that Gardner and Hammel were so far from each other.  The Music Box has quite a large stage, probably bigger than the majority of stages they play on.  So Hammel’s drums were on one side, and Gardner had two keyboard set ups on the other side.  I thought this was odd, but then things got weirder.  It seemed like the distance was horrible for them, but I soon learned from my roommate that their behavior was normal for them: when neither of them are singing, they stare at each other with their mouths open.  I asked my roommate why they did this.  “Because they love each other,” he answered simply.  I wish I hadn’t asked.  The whole thing was just too intimate to witness, and whenever they would do it, it made me uncomfortable.

I know I should never get my hopes up, but let’s face it, it’s impossible when it comes to music to not do that.  Although I was happy I’d gone, I felt disappointed by the event.  It didn’t live up to the transcendental experience I was expecting, based on the way that their album had made me feel.  I still recommend them, but cautiously so.