Photograph by Perry Julian
The primary time Lake Road Dive performed in Atlanta—if lead singer Rachel Worth’s reminiscence serves appropriately—drummer Mike Calabrese tried to speak to a Star Bar workers member earlier than the present. She rejects him and leaves the bar, after which Calabrese dedicates a revenge track to her on stage. “However one in every of his colleagues texted him about what was occurring, and he got here again!” Worth headlines this Thursday’s present at Lake Road Dive. “The entire viewers instantly knew who he was, and it was extremely cool and awkward. It is a marvel we weren’t chased out of Atlanta for good!
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Luckily for Lake Road Dive—and for Atlanta—the band has been welcomed many occasions over the last decade. This weekend, they’re taking part in a three-night set at The Japanese, the ultimate cease on their nationwide tour for his or her 2024 album, Good collectively. Thursday’s present delivered on all the things Lake Road Dive followers have come to anticipate through the years: Worth’s vibrant vocals are as dazzling as ever, bassist Bridget Kearney remains to be turning her straight right into a get-down jam machine, and 5 minutes is loads of time to convey. . That is simply how a lot this staff nonetheless loves one another. That is no small feat for a bunch of freakishly proficient musicians, most of whom met in school twenty years in the past.
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Watching them take the stage, I discovered myself imagining Lake Road Dive as a lounge singer in disguise at some crowded, ritzy restaurant. The fashionable art-deco set, with its lighted arches and emerald velveteen bar within the center, should have performed a job. So the band, who can emerge from a set of trendy curtains, color-coordinated outfits, worth gliding in entrance of a satiny pink gown. how lengthyI assumed, Will it take a crowd to comprehend that this lounge singer and his musicians are incapable of making background music, distracted by martinis and Oysters Rockefeller? All of your senses are drawn to look at Lake Road Dive play stay.
Since they burst onto the scene with their debut studio album, 2009’s self-titled Lake Road DiveAdopted by an enormous hit, 2014’s dangerous self portrait, The band has steadily earned its place as probably the most revolutionary, impressed bands of its era. By no means constrained by style, they’ve managed to weave threads of pop, jazz and funk right into a sound that is without delay immediately recognizable and interesting to a large viewers. Six albums later, they’ve developed in character and composition — keyboardist Aki Burmis joined in 2017, whereas guitarist James Cornelison changed unique member Mike Olson — however the chemistry that made them a lot enjoyable again then could be very a lot alive now. good collectively, One in all their finest albums up to now, attaining a shinier, extra skilled sound with out abandoning the self-indulgent guise it at all times created. Lake Road Dive so pretty
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
Their years as college students on the Boston Conservatory of Music could also be far behind them, however someway these musicians by no means outgrow a sure all-elbows-and-knees high quality; It is not exhausting to think about them crammed right into a ratty school residence lounge, going completely ham on a Stevie Marvel cowl. The impact is heightened by Worth herself, whose voice can carry down a million-seat home, however who strikes her hips extra like a former ballerina than a pop star. It is not what you’d name attractive, perhaps, however the mixture is totally irresistible, like an angel with freckles in all of the fallacious locations. I would pay to see Worth sing himself on the subway; Who does not?
Photograph by Perry Julian
Photograph by Perry Julian
In a candy, full-circle method, Lake Road Dive Tiny invited the Habits to open for them – a band that had additionally fashioned in school in Boston, albeit twenty years later. They performed a captivating set stuffed with fluttery tunes punctuated by a nostalgic track for his or her years in Boston referred to as “Hemenway.” Barely out of music college, they reveal the identical deep wells of expertise which have sustained Lake Road Dive all these years and share the identical pleasure in making music with one another. That alchemy has introduced us all again to see Lake Road Dive Go Ham on stage collectively for the previous twenty years, and we will definitely proceed to take action so long as they continue to be ours.
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