Walk The Moon

support I´m All Ears
author HES date 16/03/13 venue Lille Vega, Copenhagen, DEN

Walk The Moon is the new indie-sensation sweeping the nation. After getting featured on the British hit-show "Skins" it's been a straight road to the stars for the quartet. Tonight Lille Vega is sold out and the floor is filled even before the warm up band hits the stage. The room is buzzing with excitement, girly outbursts of laughter and melodies being hummed all around as tonight’s warm up “I'm All Ears” hit the stage:

I'm All Ears

Is a very, very young band but based on Danish pop heirlooms. The front man of the band Kristian Vad has written pop tunes for the iconic band TV2 and guitarist Nis Neubert Klugart is P3-royalty from The Broken Beats. So all in all I'm pretty excited to maybe catch a new great pop-act in the making here tonight. There is no doubt that these guys know how to write pop. Song after song you're hit with the sensation of having heard them before. In popish music there is a fine line between being so overly catchy that the music you make becomes cliché and actually making something catchy yet unique enough to keep the listener engaged. In the case of I'm All Ears, luckily it's the latter option.

Kristian Vad. All pictures by Thomas Dyregaard

Kristian Vad has a sweet, soft disarming voice and the riffs are playful and whimsical. Unfortunately he hits an off tone in a falsetto-part of "On My Mind" but it's easily forgiven. The standard is high. And as the guitar loses sound mid-show the band handle it as complete pro's even getting the crowd to shout "el-guitar" at the sound man. Not many here came for the warm up - the band "only" has around 500 likes on facebook, but the crowd is fired up. Whether it's general excitement or if I'm All Ears simply struck a chord with the audience is questionable. Anyway it doesn't really matter; they are great tenants of it. The only let-down is that the band only has material for 25 minutes, so it's a quick buzz up but a long wait until the main act comes along to pick it back up.

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WALK THE MOON

And 3 - 2 - 1 lift off! Walk The Moon start their set with a musical’esque tune ending off in a crescendo of laser-like synth explosions. The stage lights up as if a space ship just landed and on board were a band completely ready to rock. From my spot at the balcony in Lille Vega I suddenly notice the amounts of painted faces in the crowd. It looks like a mixture of an Indian tribe pow pow (the band has a signature tribal inspired face make up reminiscent of that of Peter Pan) and a disco concert as lead singer Nicholas Petricca calls out for Copenhagen.

Nicholas Petricca seems to be made out of a different matter tonight as he manages to handle the keys, synth, a drum and his faithful microphone. All the while this man is dancing from song start to song end. After having toured half the world and half the world left to tour the next couple of months you'd expect the band to be a bit more out of breath but for the first 30 minutes everyone here is dancing as the band plays favourites as "Quesadilla", "I can lift a car" and newly released single "Tightrope". The falsetto-based chorus of "Shiver Shiver" is absolutely dead on even though Petricca should be completely out of breath this long into the set.

Nicholas Petricca. All pictures by Thomas Dyregaard

In the middle of the show the band loses a bit of energy and hits a low point during the only really quiet song in the band's repertoire - "Iscariot". It's a beautiful moment for the first row of people who have listened to the CD over and over again, but it's almost impossible to pick up. I give credit to the band for playing such a fan-loved song, but the back of the room is lost in the contrast between disco show before and sudden slow dancing track. This is honestly the only time during the show where the band falls a bit through and you also glimpse a bit of fatigue.

Walk The Moon. All pictures by Thomas Dyregaard

Besides that little bit of a low point and a bit of microphone-squeaking this is the kind of stuff love affairs with bands are made of. The band is just as engaged in the audience as the audience is to them. A weird kind of symbiosis happened tonight between the four Americans on stage and the never-ending sea of sparkling faces. It's wonderful to go to a rock concert, feeling like you're at a disco party and being completely infected by the spirit of an audience eager to have the time of their lives.

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