The two acts that I saw play Pianos last night didn’t necessarily fit well together, but each owned the stage in their own right. Thankfully, though, the one similarity between their sets was the amazing multi-instrumentation skill displayed by members of both bands.
The first act, Teletextile (@teletextile) was a prime example of this. Singer Pamela Martinez, moved from keys to guitar to harp to violin all in the course of a relatively short set. While this sometimes led to confusion on stage or a good amount of lag time, their music is certainly the type that requires a great deal of repetition and experience to make a live set run smoothly. Given more time, I’m extremely eager to watch this band grow more into their talents.
Hey Rosetta! (@heyrosetta) was a prime example of what a tight set should be. After touring Canada and the US for well over a month, they had clearly fine-tuned their transitions, their stage presence, and their chemistry with each other. With singer Tim Baker on keys, guitar and mandolin, Romesh Thavanathan on guitar and cello, and Josh Ward on bass and mandolin, the sound had an incredible richness to it, which survived the shift from more melodic folk to rock that occurred in most songs. With additional layers of strings, guitar and percussion throughout, each note and melody was forceful and powerful for the entirety of their set.
Emotive singing and lyrics from Baker are key elements which stuck me about this band. Having seen an acoustic set from them earlier that day, which allowed greater focus on the words and strings, I was able to appreciate them much more in the electric rendition filled with boisterous guitar riffs that sometimes drowned them out. Hey Rosetta! is certainly a band with depth in their songwriting ability and instrumentation, particularly (and I have to say it) with Ward’s use of a six string bass. Always a bold move but pulled off well in this case!
