Saturday, January 21, 2012

Live Review - Caveman @ Bowery Ballroom

There was so much build-up and anticipation in Bowery Ballroom last night that you knew something special or something disastrous was going to happen. One of our "15 Artists to Watch in 2012," Brooklyn buzz band Caveman, who formed in 2010 and played their first show at Bowery Ballroom returned to the iconic venue now as headliners. The sold-out audience packed the venue on a very frigid Friday night to see the buzz band in action.

At 11pm, smoke spat out from a dry ice machine and Caveman emerged on stage. With a screen projecting a skull and the band's logo, which by the way makes them look more like a metal band rather than an ambient indie band was an awkward juxtaposition to the sound they would create moments later. The best way to describe Caveman's sound is think James Mercer fronting The Stone Roses with a bit of Spiritualized thrown in, it is all very positive and very fun to listen to. As the band plugged and played away and the crowd swayed back and forth and were very locked into what the band were doing, it echoed the fact that Caveman have arrived. For years the members of the band have kicked around with other bands and have now come together and with sets at SXSW and CMJ last year and the release of their debut, CoCo Beware, Caveman have legitimized their buzz. Singer Matt Iwanunusa is one of the most humble people in music, as he addressed the crowd halfway through the set, "It's 2012! We survived! We are in this moment and thank you for being here and surviving with us!" It has been a long road for the musicians in the band to evolve and form Caveman, but now that they have done so and the fact that their live shows are so spot on to what they have on record and create such a tangible atmosphere to their songs in concert, their buzz is only going to get bigger as the year goes on.

Read our interview with Iwanunusa from earlier this month HERE.