The Twilight Sad - Pittsburgh 10/2

On Tuesday, Sam and I ventured out to the somewhat renowned Gooski's in Polish Hill to check out The Twilight Sad. Before being treated to the boys from Scotland, we were pleasantly suprised by the local band, Life in Bed.

Life in Bed is similar to The Twilight Sad in that they teeter on that brink of shoegazer. However, Life in Bed brings a more technical, almost mathy sound, which we best compared to Minus the Bear. The relateively short set didn't give us the best sampling of their sound or ability, but it was enough for Sam to proclaim that there might be hope for the Pittsburgh scene yet. Our only beef, if you can call it that, is that we wish the singer would bring out more of the vocal range that he exhibited during the sound check where he unleashed an imperfectly perfect falsetto.

The Twilight Sad set was also somewhat short, but it delivered everything we could've asked for. They plowed through just about every track from the new record, starting off with Cold Days From the Birdhouse, with James Graham's powerful and endeering Scottish brogue drawing us in from the start. The other highlight for me was And She Would Darken the Memory of Youth. Andy MacFarlane wrapped us up in a blanket of reverb, fuzz and hidden melody, and Graham again delivered a compelling vocal that demanded our attention as he delivered the line "Head up dear, the rabbit may die." All in all it left us feeling as though we were party to something that is on the verge of becoming much bigger than the backroom stage of a somewhat forgotten Pittsburgh bar.

As a surprise we were then treated to a screening of the new biopic 'Control', that of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. If you're even a casual fan of Joy Division, New Order, or good music, you shoudl be excited for this one...it looks great, just like the night that we had thanks to Life in Bed and The Twilight Sad.