Pictures from Damiera at The Middle East Upstairs thursday, 4.02.09 at the Knuckle Salad Flickr
I had missed Damiera last time they were in town, and so I decided to brave the extreme exhaustion and mediocre weather that has come to define my last week in Boston to go see the show that Ben at Extinguish had put together for them. I had missed the opener Herra Terra, who as I mentioned (on facebook, maybe..? see above mentioned exhaustion…), just added a drummer to their 2 piece electronic, depeche-mode-from-the-future stylings. I love these dudes, have done a number of shows with them in the past, and plus the drummer they are now playing with is an old friend of mine, who sometimes plays with Arms and Sleepers and used to play in Seneca.
When Damiera start to play, it’s as though a bomb had gone off by the drums where they were all gathered, releasing the mobile band members to different corners of the small stage, swinging guitars, vaulting around happy to be alive, and dripping sweat within 60 seconds. The band’s songs are catchy in ways obvious and subtle, and dueling singers pull out saturating harmonies at some points, and at others fill in eachother’s holes (don’t be a perve, this is enlightened talk about musical phrasing……. or whatever, be a perve). But their appeal come from their catchiness poised alongside and sometimes within their ability to be a bit mathy, giving us something to chew on. Not to mention the energy that they exude on stage, undeniably a rock band within their purest of hearts, and seemingly grateful for every person in attendance. It felt great to watch them, and they are the best band on Equal Vision by a landslide.
