Concert Review: Getting To Know The Neighbourhood
The Neighbourhood
I didn’t really know who The Neighbourhood were until about a year ago. A friend introduced me a few of their songs and soon their song “Sweater Weather” blew up and I really liked it. So when my friend told me they were playing at Metropolis I said why not and bought my ticket.
The show at Metropolis featured two opening acts: Born Casual and Kitten. When I got to the venue, Born Casual was already playing. At first I didn’t even get that he was the opening act. People didn’t look too enthusiastic about his DJing. I thought he was just playing random songs to set the vibe before the show. He didn’t speak between songs either, so I only found out he went by the name of Born Casual this morning when I fired up my laptop. Near the end of his set he played a few oldies like “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani and the crowd loosened up and started paying more attention. I haven’t heard “Hollaback Girl” in a while and I love that song so A+ for Born Casual for including it in his set!
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Next up were Kitten, an LA based band as we found out at the end of the show. They didn’t really say who they were and they weren’t interacting with the crowd much in the beginning of their set. Again, I only found out what they were called when I looked up the opening bands for the Neighbourhood. They had good songs though, really catchy and the lead singer (Chloe Chaidez) had a nice voice. She was very energetic, dancing around everywhere, climbing up on the amps and then jumping off. She tried crowd surfing but the security guard caught her and wouldn’t let her go. The cord from her mic got tangled around an amp and she almost fell. Kitten’s synth sound reminded me of an 80s Madonna and sometimes of an earlier Sky Ferreira.
Finally The Neighbourhood came on. The Neighbourhood boys were all dressed in black. They had these white alien lights on when they came onstage and I could hear UFO noises in their intro. Maybe this UFO connection was due to the fact that I watched one too many X-Files episodes before coming to the show. The stage lighting was super cool. You could barely see the drummer though. I kind of felt bad for him, unless the lack of light in the back was done on purpose.
I really liked The Neighbourhood’s set. They sound exactly like they sound on their record: perfect. They also played a new song, which sounded absolutely amazing. The crowd was amazing too; people were singing along throughout the set. I was expecting to see a mass of teen girls but there was an equilibrium of girls and guys and sometimes middle-aged people. I’ve noticed that the further you move away from the stage, the nicer the people are. No mosh-pits or intense pushing around. The show ended pretty early, at 10:30. We contemplated getting poutine but didn’t.
