Slowlands / The Diggs @ CBGB’s

As I go through the weathered doors of CBGB’s I already feel saddened knowing that this club will no longer exist at the end of September. There have been so many incredible music venues and landmarks destroyed or closed in the past few years, which solidifies the fact that this city is shunning it’s cultural center in lieu for expensive condos and the rich. New York is no longer New York.

Unfortunately I missed Tiny Masters of Today which were a bunch of kids no older than 12. I heard that they were actually quite good. Quite cool for them to play on such a historic stage.

Although I haven’t been that impressed with Slowlands’ new album, their live act is consideringly better. Started in Long Island but now in Brooklyn these guys play swirly indie rock. Nothing that innovative here but they sound pretty good. However as soon as they took the stage I was apprehensive as I hate any band that has more than 4 members in it, and Slowlands further proved my theory for this distaste. Their sound wasn’t that rich enough to warrant the added members especially when you have a guy “playing” a labtop AND a guy that tinkers around with other smaller instruments that you can’t hear anyway. Their first few songs were actually quite rocking but halfway through the set it got to be quite boring and well, s l o w. I would have trimmed the set to 30 minutes of just the good songs and work on the rest. Unfortunately the most rocking song composed of repeating the same lyric “One more fire” over and over and over and over again.

The Diggs took the stage and with the power of three, they created a huge wall of sound right from the start. I’ve seen this band many times so no need to convince you how great they are, but this night was the loudest and most relaxed they’ve played. They played 2 songs I presume are new and ended with “Trouble Everyday”. Notorious for their short sets, they played only a half hour and although warranted an encore they did not keep playing.
Pictures from the show.

Links:
http://www.slowlands.com/
http://www.thediggs.com/