Mewithoutyou

support Sinai
author TL date 24/01/07 venue Loppen, Copenhagen, DEN

January 24th marked the day of two rather nice concerts in Copenhagen, namely Razorlight and Mewithoutyou, and being quite the fan of the former, I had initially planned on going to see their performance at Pumpehuset. This was however a fact that my fellow staff members had chosen to ignore/forget/misunderstand, so when we were offered tickets for the Mewithoutyou concert as well as they sang out in unison; "YEEEES! We'll take them because we KNOW that Tim is already planning to go to this show!". Needless to say; I naturally put the team ahead of myself and went to see Mewithoutyou and their support Sinai AND have an interesting chat with Aaron Weiss (HERE).

Now I already described Loppen for you, back when it was actually Razorlight I saw there, and except for the fact that I must have been too drunk to state that the venue was situated on the third floor when it is actually only on the first, my description should still be accurate. Only difference is, that this time the venue definitely wasn't packed, but still a decent amount of people had showed, and danish indie-rock outfit Sinai took the stage right on schedule.

Sinai

They kick into pretty much the most predictable set in the known history of the world. Somehow I can't shake the feeling, that the only rock-genre having success in Denmark is indie rock, and somehow all the bands that 'make it' sound very much like each other. Too much for my liking. Interpol is close to my mind, as I watch these guys try to get the crowds' spirit up. As to underline the fact that this is pretty much considered an 'indie-night', people have "assumed the position" (arms crossed, hardly moving) and crowd response is close to non existent. Under these circumstances you have to give it to the band, that at least they deliver what they have in a manner you'd be hard pressed to complain about. The vocalist has a really strong voice, and at the very least, this is NOT one of those shows where you can't hear the words of the songs. Despite the deliverance though, the fact remains unavoidable: Sinai is a band that suffers from (my self invented concept) 'the indie disease', meaning that the very things that make their soundscape interesting and characteristic are the same things that end up limiting their quality, and while they've been hard at work creating said soundscapes they seem to have also forgotten about writing songs that have that last spark of greatness necessary to get a crowd going. If I had to describe their set with one word, I wouldn't think of anything except boring

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Mewithoutyou

After a short break the headliners come on stage, and for one of the first concerts I've been to in a long time, the crowd does NOT go crazy. The band kicks straight into arguably their most popular song "January 1979". Now the sound is nice, and the performance is quality showmanship, but still nothing happens. Still people are watching from 'the position'. At this point I'm already fearing where this might be going, and with good reason. Despite their very characteristic manner of handling themselves, giving me an expression of a band more 'honest' than anyone I've seen in my life, nothing the band does tonight seem to be able to penetrate the petrified people in the crowd, and not even tracks from their new, critically acclaimed album "Brother, Sister" like "A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains", have any effect. As if this isn't bad enough, at some point in the show, between songs, frontman Aaron ask's if someone with knowledge of the danish 'free city' of Christiania (in which Loppen is situated) would be kind enough to satisfy his interest for the subject after the show, and the only response from the crowd is some drunken nitwit shouting "JEEEeEEeeSUUuUuS". At this point I was busy feeling thankful for not sharing anything else than nationality with the rest of tonight's turn-up, as an otherwise in all senses respectable performance seemed totally wasted on the audience present. Mewithoutyou actually surprised me with how I couldn't help but think they were just incredibly sincere, but to no avail, since the all but total disengagement of the crowd had wrecked the evening as an experience from the beginning. The headliners deserve to be graded about 7, but with the circumstances taken into consideration, this particular show can't creep anywhere higher than

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