Seattle Subsonic

Nico Vega, Not Suffering, Arms Up

September 24th, 2011

Nico Vega. With my book coming out, I’m a little late getting to this since I saw Nico Vega back in August, but it isn’t for any dislike of the band that I’ve been slow to write about them. In fact, I quite like the band … a lot. They’re one of the few bands I’ve seen recently that simply owned the stage, the sound, the audience. They filled The Mix in Georgetown on a Wednesday night, which for an up and coming band from L.A. is pretty good I’d say.

A lot of bands attempt to describe their sound and their influences on their websites and Facebook pages. I’ve seen more than one band say they’re attempting to melt people’s faces off. Fair enough, but Nico Vega goes a different route. They don’t mention other bands or sounds or faces falling off. They talk about togetherness, music as a way of life, a modern day saint bringing salvation through music. A lofty goal perhaps, but then, why not? All art reaches for such. Before I saw them, I read the Bio page of their website and decided not to listen to the music. I wanted to experience such live. I read the last sentence, “If you come to our show, throw your hands up so we can feel you… you will feel us,” and see if I would feel them and they me.

The short answer is yes, a definite yes. They groove and tumble and rock. The drummer stands up a lot almost seeming to use gravity for a little extra force when slamming back down on the drums. The guitar player splits his signal out to an octave pedal that runs through a bass amp which fills things well in the lack of a bass player. Coupled with reverbs and delays and choruses and textures, Nico Vega, unlike some other bassless bands (more on those coming soon), did not suffer from want of some lows to bridge the gap between guitar and drums. There was movement and frantic vocals, and she sang, and she bounced. She made wide eyes. She owned it. She was up, and she was down and left and right. She was standing on the kick drum, grooving on the kick drum, grooving with the drums flailing head and arms and legs all about. And arms in the audience were indeed thrown up.

Good time. Great band. Not sure when they’ll be in Seattle next, but I’ll be there. I’ll leave the notebook at home though so I can do a little arm raising of my own.

Dave

Photos by Jacob Lucas (view more)