Poliça at Terminal West, Atlanta, October 6, 2014

Poliça played Terminal West last night.  The funny thing is I almost didn't go.

Generally speaking, it's very difficult for me to go to shows on Monday nights, and we just saw Poliça at Bumbershoot in Seattle.  I reasoned that in order to realize cost savings by going all the way to the Pacific Northwest for a festival, it would make sense to pass up the local appearances by bands that I've seen, and save my money just for those that I didn't.  But then I realized that by that logic, I would be paying to go to festivals in order to miss going to local show that I wanted to see.  That didn't make any sense, and when the Monday Night Meditation Group got out early, I suddenly realized that I had plenty of time to drive over to Terminal West before the first band even came on stage.

So I did.

And I'm glad I did because I really liked the first band, Web of Sunsets.  Web of Sunsets play dreamy folk rock with just the right amount of experimentation and Velvet-style drone.  Occasional samples of ambient nature sounds were played during their set, and most of the songs feature three guitars, but occasionally one or the other members might turn to the keys.  Here's a little taste:

Here's something I've never seen before - during one song, one of the two Sarahs in the band (apparently they have a "Sara" and a "Sarah"), played harmonica with the harp pressed against the strings of her electric guitar, so that you could hear the harmonica through the pickups, but you could also hear the vibrating of the guitar strings.  Cool.

I look forward to hearing more from Web of Sunsets, but last night we were out to hear Poliça, and were we ever rewarded.  It was probably the most energetic, charismatic performance I've seen from the band yet, and Channy Leaneagh was lovely as always.

The set rewarded close attention but kept everyone engaged with their two-drum attack.  I never realized before last night how much bassist Chris Bierden contributes to Poliça's sound, not only with his bass playing, but how much harmony he contributes, even filling in the higher registers for many vocal parts and even soloing on some passages that I had just assumed were Channy. 

They started their set with Bierden's thundering bass for Amongster, and ended the set with Wandering Star and their encore with Dark Star.  In between, it was all one happy blur to me.