concert review: Cold War Kids @ Fillmore 07 May 2009

Cold War Kids played the Fillmore on Thursday night, and oh did they play their hearts out. While their set list centered on their sophomore LP Loyalty to Loyalty, which is almost unanimously deemed inferior to their stellar debut Robbers and Cowards, the performance didn’t suffer in the least.

Their fervent deliveries of the songs actually resonated with the rhythmic quality which defines their debut album, making the experience well worth while. The live set sounded far removed from anything they’ve ever recorded, most notably because everything was delivered in a slower, less urgent manner, allowing the audience to truly savour each note and lyric. Cold War Kids’ set almost sounded like a jam band, but the guys’ high energy on stage more than compensated for Nathan’s mellow vocal delivery. Their bass player Matt was the wildest one that night, as his sound nearly overpowered the vox.

The highlight of the night was when they played “Against Privacy”, as the guitars blared and sent shivers through my spine. To my delight, the boys ended the night with my two favourite songs of theirs, “We Used to Vacation” and “Saint John”, one of the greatest encores I’ve ever witnessed. The concert was not what I was expecting in the least; I didn’t realize that it would be so different than the experience of listening to their records. Nevertheless, both their studio and live sounds are stellar, and I highly recommend that you check CWK out the next time that they’re in town, which might not be for a while, as the Fillmore show was the last of their Spring tour. Matt said that they’ve been writing songs on the road (they played a new one called "Coffee Spoon" during the set) and hope to get back to the recording studio as soon as possible. I’ll keep you all posted with updates as soon as I get ‘em.
3.5/5

set list:




Opening band We Barbarians were quite impressive as well. Think Bends-era Radiohead with the occasional inclusion of an acoustic guitar. The Long Beach based band is currently finalizing their first full length album, enjoy one off of their EP In The Doldrums below:

We Barbarians – Black and Crooked [mp3]

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We Barbarians: