The El Mocambo is such a misleading venue. To get to it you have to walk past a multitude of shoddy Chinese establishments and then the entrance to the venue itself is marked by a giant neon sign (that barely works) with a palm tree on it and an unmarked old door. It just seems like the sketchiest place to the casual observer. Once you get inside though, everything changes. The sound is amazing, and so is the atmosphere, and it’s never too crowded. This then, was a fitting venue in which to see Freelance Whales.
Just after 8:30 pm, Freelance Whales’ own Nicole Mourelatos, performing under her stage name Doris Cellar. Her set was a solo acoustic affair, except with ukelele replacing the normal guitar. Surprisingly, she played every song with just ukelele. The crowd seemed to really enjoy her, and by the end of her set, the El Mocambo was as full as it would get all night.
Next up were Brooklyn (every band on the bill were from Brooklyn, NY) alt-country/indie rock band Mia Riddle. Mia Riddle is the name of the frontwoman/songwriter and the band just goes under her name. The atmosphere changed completely when they played, changing from a hipster coffee house to a bar in Montana. Mia and the band had just the right amount of country twang instilled in their music to be convincing. The only complaint I had about their set is that the banjo was mostly inaudible. Other than that, they sounded perfect, and a lot of their songs were extremely strong also. Generally, their best songs were the faster ones.
After a surprisingly short set-up time (considering the amount of instruments they use) Freelance Whales started up their set. Surprisingly, they didn’t open with ‘Generator First Floor’, which was the first song on their debut album Weathervanes. That was surprisingly because that song is just a perfect opener. Instead they opened with a new song, which is always a sure way for a band to start off the set on the wrong foot. Sound issues immediately because apparent, but maybe that was also because no one knew the song. They then launched into ‘Kilojoules’ which sounded a lot better. They finally played ‘Generator First Floor’ third. Even that song, one of the best of 2010, didn’t sound right. Throughout their set, whenever all the band members played together it just sounded wrong. Not so wrong that it ruined the song, but wrong in a distracting way. However, when they reduced to playing one or two instruments or when the band members all sang together it sounded amazing. The sound was perfect for Mia Riddle, so I don’t know what happened. The band also played another new song that they had released onto the internet earlier this year called ‘Enzymes’. That song and the other new songs they played didn’t appear to be at the same level of quality as their older songs, but maybe in the studio they can be improved. Freelance Whales played Weathervanes in its entirety, which was nice. It’s always nice to see a band when they only have one album out because you can be mostly assured that they’ll play the song you want to hear.
Overall, this was a good show, but not as good as it could have been.
-Scott Kendall
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