Devotchka
with the Haunted Windchimes
2008-10-29
Colorado College – Armstrong Hall
Colorado Springs, CO
I wasn’t sure what to expect from either band – though I knew that Devotchka had done some of the music in ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ which Brian and I had really enjoyed. And the Haunted Windchimes we knew were from Pueblo (!) and had a cover story done on them a few weeks back in the CS Indy.
I really enjoyed the set by the Haunted Windchimes. Very blues-y and a little dark and “spooky” sounding – they structured their set to build from a few slower songs (a nice warm up for the audience) – to nice and up-tempo by the end of the set. I was sold – and had to pick up their CD on the way out of the show…
Devotchka is interesting… You have to like any band that features a Tuba, and when the tuba player is a woman – who’s tuba is festooned with red and white Christmas lights – and she likes to dance a little while she plays… Well – I think “not something you see very often” fits.
I’m sure that the album mix is good – but I found some of the techniques they use in their music (high distortion on lead vocals) were a bit tough to take live. I swear I could only pick out 3-4 words – regardless of language they were in – in each song…Just hard to tell where the first word stopped and the next word started. But with that being said – they have a great hungarian/gypsy feel and everyone was on their feet at the end of their set grooving along.
