Double Barrel Benefit a Double Success

The sixth annual WKNC Double Barrel Benefit was held on the nights of Friday, Feb. 6, and Saturday Feb. 7 , downtown at the Pour House. Around 9 pm, there were about five people in line outside, and the inside, both on the upper and lower levels, were packed full of people. There was a high level of excitement and anticipation among both the show-goers and the Pour House staff.

Friday night began the onslaught of indie music. DJ Stevo, WKNC’s Local Music Czar (known by day as Steve Salevan), welcomed everyone to the event, and introduced everyone to the first act, Lonnie Walker. The packed house gave them a warm welcome, and the Benefit begun.

After Lonnie Walker performed their set, Lost in the Trees, Schooner and the Bowerbirds all took the stage. Lonnie Walker got the audience excited, and they were slowly brought down from their high with the increasingly-calm musical stylings of the next three bands. Each of the bands seemed to have previous fans in the audience, to varying degrees. Lost in the Trees appeared to have the biggest following, with the Bowerbirds being a close second.

During the downtime between sets, show-goers drank, smoked and socialized with each other. The downtime generally tended to last around twenty minutes, while the previous band was removing their equipment from the stage, and the next band was moving theirs on. The longest downtime between sets was between those of Schooner and the Bowerbirds. This was attributed to the Bowerbirds having some tuning difficulties. The night ended at 2 a.m., after the Bowerbirds’ second encore song.

Saturday night started off with a much longer line outside, even earlier than the previous night. Inside, there were noticeably less audience members than there had been the previous night. That changed as the first and second bands played their respective sets.

Saturday night’s bands included I Was Totally Destroying It, Violet Vector, the Lovely Lovelies, Birds of Avalon and Polvo. The energy was at a high, fun level with the first and second bands, while the last two bands took it a bit darker and anarchic with their musical styles. Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies turned the Pour House into a dance floor, with audience members dancing and infectiously clapping during most of their songs.

Midway through the night, the top and lower levels were filled with people. Halfway through Polvo’s set, audience members had begun vacating both the upper and lower levels, leaving the Pour House at around fifty percent capacity. The show ended at 2 a.m.

Here are some brief descriptions of each band’s act…

Birds of Avalon

Birds of Avalon was certainly a bird of a different feather. The songs were violently punk, and one melded pretty seamlessly into the next. The band’s songs tended to be really drawn out, where the music would build up, build up, build up, as well as start and stop multiple times, without really getting anywhere. In other words, they prolonged the plateau without giving the satisfaction of release.

Birds of Avalon was the only band who projected light and shadow patterns onto the wall behind them. These soothing patterns were a direct counterpoint to the frenetic thrashing of their music.

Bowerbirds

Friday night’s last act, the Bowerbirds, started their set later than intended due to technical difficulties related to tuning their instruments. To show the band’s gratitude, the lead guitarist repeatedly thanked the audience for their presence. Their songs had roots in the bluegrass genre, which made sense with the wistful vocals. The songs were musically sparse, with no unnecessary trappings. All the better to showcase the melancholy vocals and lyrics. The band frequently harmonized over the instrumentals, and sometimes over silence. The band had some prior fans in the audience, since every song was greeted with a strong positive response. They played ten songs, and then hearing the audience’s thunderous applause, came back for an encore of two more songs.

I Was Totally Destroying It

On Saturday night, I Was Totally Destroying It started it up right, making their songs very energetic and welcoming everybody to the second night of the Double Barrel Benefit. The band played a few songs from their last album that they claimed they had not played live before. They also played some songs that will be on a record that is coming out in the summer.

Near the end of their set, the band invited DJ Stevo and another guest to the stage to sing a song. DJ Stevo threw himself into it, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions, while the other guest looked on in amusement.

Lonnie Walker

Lonnie Walker enthusiastically kicked off Friday night, and immediately got the audience into the music with the drumbeats leading the way. The bands’ members looked as if they were having a great time onstage. Almost every song found the keyboardist singing along, and the drummer gave himself a workout banging on his set. The set ended with the drummer and keyboardist, this time on drums, squaring off on opposite drums while intensely staring at each other. It ended as abruptly as it begun, and the band left the stage to the roar of the crowd’s approval.

Lost in the Trees

Lost in the Trees won the night’s awards for largest band (clocking in at ten members), as well as most diverse range of instruments used (violins, cellos, accordion and electric guitar, among others). Of all the bands seen, they gave off the impression of being the most serious with their music, down to where the women were mainly attired in neutral-hued concert dress (so as not to distract from their performance). Their songs were notable for much juxtaposition of frolicking instrumentals with melancholic vocals. Many audience members appeared to know their previous work, because nearly every song was greeted with enthusiastic applause.

Polvo

Polvo was notable for immediately making a statement before playing. On opening the set, the lead guitarist invited a violent beating upon himself by saying, “I’m a Carolina fan”. Predictably, the crowd roared in disapproval. (As of press time, there has been no word on whether any citizen of the Wolfpack nation has taken him up on his more-than-generous offer.) In terms of their sound, it was energetic and had the tendency to shift tones on a dime, a tendency in which the band indulged frequently. The band’s guitar stylings led to sounds that resembled the wail of a siren, prompting some audience members to look around in bewilderment.

Schooner

Schooner was the most low-key of the bands performing. Their songs were mostly dreamy and atmospheric, gently rolling the listener along on its lyrics. There was a large amount of harmonizing, especially between the guitarists and keyboardist. In most cases, the keyboarding was sandwiched in between the guitar and drums. The keyboard use was sometimes prominent, lending a funereal quality to the music. In some of the songs, the vocals sounded ethereal, or even haunting. The singing was, at times, a bit overshadowed by the drum beats, and the band ended their set with the cymbals being lightly tapped to get a rolling, tinkling effect.

Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies

Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies were the act that put the most thought into their costumes. The three girls in the group rocked mod dresses in bold colors and patterns, as well as mary-jane shoes and calf-length boots, while the men wore long-sleeve shirt or a jacket with bold red pinstripes visible from the upper level. The songs were fun, very sunny 1960s pop infused with modern riot-grrl tendencies. This band certainly knew how to put on a performance, involving the audience by punctuating many songs with rapid rhythmic hand claps. Their performance made one want to dance the Twist while grinning gleefully.