Capital Cities, St. Lucia, and Big Black Delta at Brooklyn Bowl 8/12/12

William Ruben Helms

14 years ago

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Capital Cities, St. Lucia, and Big Black Delta

Brooklyn Bowl

August 12, 2012

Back in August, I was at Brooklyn Bowl, one of my favorite venues in town to catch live music for a late night show of electropop featuring Capital Cities, St. Lucia and Big Black Delta. Photos will come – but after some brief thoughts on the show at hand.

Arriving early, I wound up chatting with some of my fellow concertgoers – it’s a practice I’ve come to enjoy, especially when it comes to acts I’m not familiar with – I had learned that a lot of the young crowd were looking forward to Capital Cities. I found their stage presence and their sound to be highly unoriginal and grating to the point of obnoxiousness. I was reminded of the sort of terrible, kind of untalented bands that would often play in front of clueless Bridge and Tunnel crowds at the Red Lion on Bleecker Street. But honestly, what’s worse than being truly terrible is being truly terrible and boring. Their material just seemed to drag on endlessly and they felt plodding – and it made their liveliness seem especially phony, as though they were trying a bit too hard.
Of course, I was initially there to catch St. Lucia. I had been playing his self-titled debut EP a lot and although it’s flawed in the sense that it is entirely reminiscent of 80s pop, the guy has a way of writing catchy hooks, and the songs are literally pop confections. But I will say that live, he fairly (and a bit unfairly) draws comparisons to Washed Out. Backed by a live band (much like Washed Out), it gave St. Lucia’s material an organic and muscular punch which was wholly unexpected. Most his set was from his EP, and what struck me as pretty interesting was how the crowd was not only familiar with his EP, they were excited to hear it. And that energy seemed to carry both the band and the entire room. (I had thought that St. Lucia was the headliner so I was all kinds of confused when they came on second.)
I was in desperate need of a drink and was about to go over to Spike Hill when someone told me that I needed to catch Los Angeles’ Big Black Delta – and they were right. Perhaps out of all of the night’s sets, their sound was the most original and hardest to define because it had an industrial bang and clatter – but while still retaining a pop element. I’d love to catch them again.

I had spent a good deal of time with these guys and their girlfriends during most of this show, and they were a lot of fun. The whole group was extremely kind and as they had pitchers, they were happily offering me some of their beer. So I have to thank them for their kindness and overall friendliness. (It’s one of the reasons why I enjoy Brooklyn Bowl.)

Capital Cities