Show 9/52 – Fruit Bats at The Blackcat, 3/20/10

(photos coming soon)

I hadn’t been to a show in more than 3 weeks and I was really beginning to miss live music. Due to schedules we had not been able to make it out to anything recently, but I had the Fruit Bats show on my calendar for a couple of months now, and I wasn’t going to miss out.

The other Rockwurst faithful were unavailable this weekend, so I recruited a couple of new music loving friends to partake. We started the evening out by going to a Washington Improv Theater (WIT) show at The Source Theater, enjoying some FIST! If you haven’t checked out a WIT show, and are looking for a great night of comedy, go check out FIST! It is a NCAA tourney style of improv competition where teams of 3 fight for laughs and audience votes to move on to the next round. Sorry for the shameless promotion, but gotta support my improv brethren.

We got to the Blackcat early and played a couple rounds of pool, missing the first part of the show (I can’t lie, alcohol had taken away my sense of time) But when we finally got upstairs, my ears were treated to delightful guitar riffs, enjoyable melodies, classic rock harmonies, and the overall sweet sound of the Fruit Bats. I had heard about Fruit Bats through a KEXP podcast, and fell in love with the opening line to the title track to their latest album Ruminant Band. It goes, “You’ll always have smokes if you always give buckets of love.” It’s like a rock star/hippie/buddhist philosophy wrapped into one sweet anthem.

The have a very classic rock sound with twinges of Niel Young, Tom Petty, My Morning Jacket and some electric Bob Dylan. Lead singer Eric Johnson’s vocal range is slightly higher than tenor, almost in the same range as Robert Plant, but a little smoother.

We got to here about 50 minutes of their set, and they showed the experience of a band who has been at it a while. Before the encore, Johnson talked about their first trip to the Blackcat 10 years ago when they were on the same bill as The Shins and Modest Mouse. That caught me off guard a little, one because it made me realize I first heard The Shins more than 6 years ago now, but also how those other two groups have gone on to pretty big success, while Fruit Bats struggle to sell out a Saturday night show at the Blackcat. I’d argue Fruit Bats have developed a more consistent sound drawing on past and present influences more than Modest Mouse, and have a fullness and the ability to evoke emotions similar to The Shins.

I got to talk with a couple of the guys after the show, and they were very down to earth and realistic, they all have other part-time jobs when not touring. But it was also evident that they had a real passion for their music. The drummer, when talking about how the band now lives in 3 cities (Chicago, Portland, and Seattle) and only comes together to record and tour, smiled and said, “What else am I going to do, this is my life.”