The 1990's: a bunch of kids in Beaverton, Oregon, a suburb or Portland, hanging out and forming bands. They all become good friends and wind up playing at each others' gigs at parties and small clubs. Eventually, they get signed but to different labels and end up touring separately, recording separately, and proceeding on separate paths. Those paths diverged until this year, when they finally wound up touring together for the very first time. Last night, that tour brought Portland's Menomena and the Helio Sequence to Atlanta, Georgia's Terminal West.
Menomena opened.
We've seen Menomena a bunch of times before, including a 2010 gig at Variety Playhouse, and then at MFNW 2012, right as they had released their most recent record, Moms, and were all over town. We saw them three times that week (a KEXP daytime show at the Doug Fir and then later that same day their main MFNW set at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and at the OPB party at Mississippi Studios), and it felt like you couldn't walk into a coffee shop and not find Menomena performing in the back of the store. This, then, was our fifth time seeing them.
They were great as always, although the sound mix was fairly muddy for the first half of their set and bassist-saxophonist-multi-instrumentalist Justin Harris was plagued with equipment malfunctions (dead mic, broken guitar string, and some sort of laptop problem I couldn't comprehend). But despite these setbacks (or maybe because of those setbacks), their quirky and complex songs were still entertaining and fascinating.
Before they started work on Moms, founding member Brent Knopf left the band to form Ramona Falls, whom we recently saw at Bumbershoot this year (and at the godforsaken Masquerade earlier this year). In his place, Menomena had two touring musicians, at least one of whom (the guitarist in the Maps & Atlases t-shirt) I recognized from the 2012 gigs in Portland.
The Helio Sequence got the honor of headlining. We've seen them only once before, earlier this year at this same venue (Terminal West).
The Helio Sequence consists of only two musicians, but together they sound like a much fuller band. Drummer Benjamin Weikel is able to produce bass-like lines with his bass drum and toms, while filling in other drum beats and looking like he's having more fun than anyone else in the room. Guitarist Brandon Summers creates layers of sound with loop pedals and other effects, and if you close your eyes, you'd think that at least a four-piece band was on the stage in front of you.
Their tightly structured songs don't leave much room for improvisation - this isn't a band that's going to suddenly go jam-band on you - but the sheer precision and craftsmanship that goes into their songs more than compensates for any lack of surprise. They played a great set of fun, sunny rock songs and played them well, and that's more than most bands can say.
On a final note, the Rail King's streak continued: like at the past three shows I've gone to, I managed to get the best position in the venue last night - right in front of center stage, no one in front of me but the band and smack dab in the center. Awesome. But it wasn't as much of a challenge last night (getting and keeping that spot for Savages was the real achievement of the week), as the crowd was surprisingly small for these two bands - the twin billing last night of Passion Pit and The Joy Formidable at the godforsaken Masquerade may have lured many of the customers away.
Hell, if it weren't for this show, I probably would have been there myself.
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