Local Natives at The Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH. 5-11-10

In some circles, Local Natives' have been referred to as “the west coast Grizzly Bear (!),” and the more time I spend with their debut album Gorilla Manor, the more apt I am to agree to the comparison. Upon first listen, Local Natives couldn’t seem further removed from the hushed harmonies and sonic melodies of the already worshiped Yellow House or Veckatimest. The comparisons start to make sense given Gorilla Manor’s soaring four part harmonies, multi-instrumentation and excellent production. Local Native’s uses all of the same elements as Grizzly Bear (!), just in an entirely new way. What first struck me about Gorilla Manor was how incredibly fresh it sounded. The band’s use of percussion clatter, feel-good chants, rough guitar lines and evident garage rock influences (including a Talking Heads cover), makes Gorilla Manor completely unforgettable. Local Natives has easily become my favorite new band, so making the decision to drive the three hours to Cleveland wasn’t exactly tough. I rarely write about opening bands, but I’ll make an exception for Suckers. A couple of the Brooklyn band’s songs have been floating around the internet, so I had the chance to check them out prior to the show. Their debut album Wild Smile has a release date of June 8^th, and after seeing them, I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s very rare that an opening band is able to hold the audience’s attention for very long, but Suckers managed to do just that. Their high energy, sometimes quirky music was the perfect lead-in to Local Natives' equally energetic set. I’ll admit I once again scored quite the spot and thus had an excellent view of the show. Local Native’s started with “Wide Eyes”, an addictively melodic tale of discovery and a personal favorite. I could tell right away that this would be an incredible show, everyone around me was beyond enamored. The audience, at least those up front, followed the bands every move and it was obvious that they had fallen just as in love with Gorilla Manor as I did. The band played almost everything off of their debut, shirking only “Sticky Thread”. Though the set was short it was enthralling. Despite already being moderately up-tempo, Local Natives seemed to breathe new life and energy to the now so familiar songs. If I had gotten sick of them by now, I would have fallen for them all over again. The percussion seemed to clatter more, the guitar lines seemed even bouncier and the lyrics seemed even more assertive. Lines like “And even if I can’t be sure, memory tells me these times are worth working for,” originally seen as the mark of a young band in search of affirmation, sounded more matter of fact. That’s not to say that Local Native’s comes off older live, in fact quite the opposite. The band clearly loves to play, and their vigor and excitement was impossible to ignore. The highlight of the show came when Sucker’s bassist joined Local Natives on stage to add trumpet to “Who Knows, Who Cares”, the song that became my favorite on my first Gorilla Manor listen. "Who Knows, Who Cares" was already gorgeous, and the trumpet only added to that, not to mention that Pan (Sucker’s bassist) is incredibly talented and a joy to watch. Local Natives closed the show with the triumphant “Sun Hands”, backed by an audience screaming every word right along with them. Whenever I get to see new bands like Local Natives I can always feel something happening. It’s a kind of anticipation that you can’t find in veteran bands, a feeling of the beginning of something big. I like to think that no matter how practiced a band is, they still get the same enjoyment from playing, but the truth is nothing can ever replicate the anticipation that looms in the early part of a band's career. Local Natives is the kind of band that one can easily see having a long career. I'm sure a few albums from now I’ll be looking back on this show and remembering Local Natives at the beginning, when they still sat at their own merch both and seemed stunned whenever someone told them that they were incredible.