Last night, while hoards of NY-ers flocked to Madison Square Garden to check out the White Stripes, I took the Robert Frost route and went the road less traveled: Mercury Lounge to check out Great Northern.
The LA-born indie-pop group opened for The Comas to a pretty tame audience; maybe because it was a Tuesday? Or maybe because their songs, love them as I may, always seem to make me want to curl up and pass out? Either way, they greeted the audience with a strong opening of “Our Bleeding Hearts,” the first track from their debut album Trading Twilight For Daylight, then were forced to fix some crackling equipment that vocalist/keyboarder Rachel Stolte aptly nicknamed “Peanut Butter Crunch.” The band did a great job of keeping the audience interested and listening through the night, as the Mercury Lounge failed to keep the sound together through out most of their set.
Great Northern, comprised of Stolte, Solon Bixler (30 Seconds to Mars), Ashley Dzerigian and Davey Latter has a way of keeping the attention of the audience at all times. It wasn’t the winter wonderland light fixtures, or the way Dzerigian looked exactly like she was plucked from a Robert Palmer video. What kept me there, what keeps most people listening to Great Northern, is the intense sound that shoots from Stolte’s mouth: truly beautiful, and truly something that the MSG-ers missed out on. The band explodes on stage, sound problems or not, and does no less than captivate an audience each time they play.
