The Headlights

This Wednesday I went to see the Headlights in concert at Mike n Molly with Joyce. Joyce frequently puts up lyrics to songs as away messages, and I always read other people's away messages, so I'm frequently poking fun at her because I don't listen to the music she does. Yes, I'm weird like that. :-p

Anyways, I remember the Headlights as one of Joyce's favorite bands, so I figured "why not?" But first I still did some research. Afterall, the last concert I went to w/ Ian turned out to be a dud for me. Well, hurray for iTunes!! (Although I find it funny that almost every band/record on iTunes has a 4-5 star review, because only fans would visit their bands on iTunes imo, LOL :-) The official blurb about them disturbed and confused me. "90's American noise pop," what's that? I suppose "indie pop" makes some sense to me (and doesn't surprise me) but still doesn't fill me w/ confidence. Being a 70's and 80's rock and JPOP/JROCK fan, I never understood indie rock or emo. But after taking a listen to the exerpts, I felt good enough about the sound to give them a try. Joyce and I agreed on "pop rock" as the more appropriate description.

The concert itself was pretty good. The acoustics weren't great (small mostly brick room) but the energy was good. I think that's what got me the most. The songs weren't feeling down and sorry for themselves. Even if the lyrics aren't happy-happy-sunshine, the beat, the rhythm, and the melodies flowed and moved you. Now that I think about it, very similar to Nene and 99 Luftballons or 99 Red Balloons. They had some problems getting the reverb to work right at first for one of the songs but laughed it off and tried again. I liked that while they tried different things, they're mostly brief interludes and the majority of their sound is a fairly rocking pop sound. Yes, I'm not a deep thinker/listener. :-p Even the bit with the accordian worked well imo.

I decided that I should support bands continuing to put out sound that I appreciate, so I went on to iTunes and picked up their album that night. The odd thing is, during the concert I felt that they lacked polish, which could have been partially due to the acoustics and live setting, but listening to their albums I felt the polish took away some of the pop energy I enjoyed at the concert and made them seem more "indie", if that made any sense.

Finally, check out the "TV" video, featuring settings of Champaign-Urbana!! LOL ^_^ (Yes, the Headlights originate from CU.)