There are four things you need to know about the Stellastarr* show at New York City’s Highline Ballroom.
One: the Highline Ballroom is beautiful. Picture The Filmore at Irving Plaza getting a make-over by the guys from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. There are sleek, trendy bar areas on either side of the room, and next to each bar are lounge areas with tables and booths that have delicate glowing lights recessed behind them, and the colors of the lights shift between vivid food coloring hues of blue, green and purple. The whole thing looks like a vodka commercial. Now imagine someone split that room right down the middle and inserted a stage and a dance floor.
Two: this show was put together by the Kor Project, which brings underground, emerging bands and artists together in order to provide them with a platform that will showcase both music and art in a dynamic setting. Part of the show’s proceeds went to the Leukemia Society of New York. Check them out at korproject.com.
Three: the first opening act Seems So Bright was forgettable, but the second act Ra Ra Riot was outstanding. Their pulsating post-indie thrived on the edge of shaking apart into explosive chaos, like sharp rollercoaster curves that feel like they’re going to throw you off the tracks as they whip around but they don’t and it’s awesome and everyone has a good time. The band’s members all possess a high level of talent and technical know-how, and they sometimes look like music students who opted to use their talents for good instead of free jazz. Having a cellist and a violinist in your band automatically gives it an air of sophistication and class, and RRR backed that up with well-written and well-played songs, lyrics that expressed open-hearted pledges of affection or lovelorn disappointment that were heartfelt without being hackneyed, and a vibrant sense of camaraderie with each other that made their set as fun for the audience as it was for the band.
I guess there should be a 3.5 here, which is that the crowd was made up mostly of people who were extremely attractive. Models, successful types. People drinking too much in order to balance out their beauty. It made people like me stick out like sore, geeky, rock nerd thumbs.
Four: Stellastarr* tore that pretty house down. They seized the stage with all the maturity and intensity of a band with twice as many albums and years of touring behind them might. A crowd of feverish supporters devotedly packed the ballroom to revel in the thick and pointed riffs that propel their sound into something vaguely familiar but decidedly original. Through a permanent curtain of smoke machine smoke, the twin guitars of Shawn Christensen and Michael Jurin along with Amanda Tannen’s bass and Arthur Kremer’s drumming sawed and hissed around each other, coalescing into songs that pummeled the audience time and again with gritty post-wave sound. It was like being on the business end of a tsunami, as the melodies seemed to disappear slowly into themselves before exploding out around each other in waves of massive hooks that gave way to bursts of explosive feedback. Throughout the show, Jurin thrashed and spun around his side of the stage, lending a counter balance to anyone who may have had a difficult time moving their attention from the enchanting Amanda Tannen or shirtless Arthur Kremer. Shawn Christensen anchored the band with a commanding voice and a presence to match. The superb stage lighting of the Highline Ballroom made the set feel all the more powerful and proved a nice accent to Stellastarr*’s intensity and sophistication.
Their set consisted mostly of new, as yet unreleased songs, but there were definitely some familiar crowd pleasers, especially “On My Own” from the 2005 full-length Harmonies for the Haunted and “Somewhere Across Forever” from their 2003 eponymous debut. After announcing that they had played their last song and would not be playing an encore, they returned to the stage after less than a minute to play the closing encore of “Pulp Song”, from the first album. The crowd desperately chanted for more until the house lights came up, which we all know as the international sign for “This show is over, folks.” The crowd, mostly ignoring the paintings of the emerging artists on display upstairs, trickled out from that sophisticated venue and into the rude awakening that is the aroma of 16th Street’s fish markets and produce distributors.
~John Frusciante
