CSS & Sleigh Bells @ First Ave

Hello loyal readers, I know it's been far too long since my last post. I promise to make up for it this summer by attending and reviewing as many shows as I can! Time and budget shall be my only limitations.

Anyhoo, I went to First Ave last night for the sold out CSS and Sleigh Bells show. I forgot it was all ages so my friend and I herded upstairs with the rest of the legal drinking age cattle. We got there in time to catch the end of the second opener, I believe called Neon Indian. It could have been Princeton though since I wasn't really paying attention.

CSS came on next, and totally blew me away. I already recognized a couple of their songs, but I fell in love with a few new ones. I thought the music was tight and well put together, the lyrics were straightforward, honest, and funny, and most importantly, their songs were super fun to dance to! The lead singer was an act all in her own right - she came onstage in boots, black pants, a red plaid shirt, and a black leather jacket, with a misfits-style face paint look going on. Super cool, right? Well it turned out the pants were tear-away, which were torn away to reveal jean shorts with a patterned pair of tights underneath. The jacket came off and the shirt beneath was longer than her jean shorts. Then, much to everyone's growing astonishment, she revealed not one but TWO other shirts underneath that one! She must have been sweltering in all those clothes. Plus, for the second to last song, she put on a pink flowery dress over her clothes and danced around with the zipper open and the dress falling off her arms. She even got down onto the floor with the crowd a couple times, and totally crowdsurfed. My friend called her "awesomely '90s" and I have to agree. They were absolutely amusing and kick ass. The drummer had his face painted too, and the keyboardguitarist was sporting a Sleigh Bells shirt. I love a female bassist so that was a nice touch. I honestly couldn't tell if the guitarist was a man or a woman - but s/he had kind of a fro-rat tail hair style going on, and was skinny but with toned arms. So bizarre but it totally fit! I love CSS. I can see why they're so tired of being sexy.

Then, after a prolonged break, Sleigh Bells came on stage to the opening strains of "Iron Man." Their stacks of speakers had a light show going on around them, and the fog was coming out hot and heavy from behind them. With the LOUD music (must've turned it up to 11), strobe lights, fog, heavy pot smoke, and light show, I was pissed that I didn't have any acid last night (joking of course). It would have been a whole different experience and to be frank, my senses were already close to overload with just some beer in me. To be honest, I wasn't impressed. They just danced around with backlighting for about 20 minutes and then they were done. The singer did some crowdsurfing too, which had totally already been done and seemed totally passe. CSS made it cool again when they joined SB on the stage at the very end of the show.

The lead mic needed to be higher because I couldn't understand a lot of what was being said or sung, and CSS totally should have been the headliners instead of Sleigh Bells. Those issues aside, it was a great show!