Review: Geri X record release party last night @ the State
January 18th, 2009 by Eric Snider in Reviews
It looked like a real rock concert.
Geri X held a CD release party for her new Anthems of a Mended Heart (24 Hour Service Station) last night at the State Theatre and people showed up. A decent amount of them (depending on your point of view). She and three other acts — Will Quinlan and the Diviners, The Beauvilles and Have Gun, Will Travel — put on tight, committed sets that provided an evening of strong entertainment. But the night’s real issue was not how the bands would perform, but how well the show would draw with a major local media blitz supporting it.
Two hundred and twenty-five paid ($8). Another 50-75 in comps. Total: An attendance hovering close to 300. That’s according to CL marketing director Joran Oppelt, a tireless booster of the local scene. He wasn’t devastated, but he wasn’t thrilled either. “It just seems impossible to get into the 300s and above,” he said this morning. “With all the media, I had expected more of a turnout.”
Still, he conceded, it “felt like a rock show.”
The concert was well-organized and presented, with a cool stage set-up including projected images on a screen and clear sound kept at reasonable volume. Geri X and her band — bassist Greg Roteik and drummer Matthew Bennett — took the stage at 11:45, 15 minutes behind the set schedule. Around here, that counts as highly efficient.
With the house dim, she just started playing. I would’ve liked to see a bit more fanfare — not a disembodied, Vegas-style, “Ladies and gentleman, Pleeeeeeaaase WELCOME,” but perhaps someone to come out and introduce her, so that the crowd could cheer, instead of turning away from conversations and going, “Oh, she’s starting.”
Geri X’s voice was in spirited form, full and clear and standing out amid the instrumental backdrop. Hell, you could even make out quite a few of her provocative lyrics. Perhaps because she made her bones as a solo coffeehouse performer, Geri X’s stage persona was subdued and on the shy side last night. She mostly murmured “Thank you” between songs, although she was clearly gratified that a goodly number of fans stood before her.
Geri X would be well-served to enlarge her personality on stage. If she’s going to play with a band to crowds in the 200-300 range on the tour she plans to mount in the spring, concertgoers are going to want to feel a little bit more presence from her. The young woman possesses loads of quiet charisma. She now has to turn that charisma up. Because she writes and performs confessional, acoustic music, no one expects back flips into the pit, but she could certainly be more animated.
That is not a problem for Sean Kyle Beauville, frontman of The Beauvilles. He’s a writhing showman with a rock-star presence, his hair often shrouding his face. He and his band provided the most intense rock moments of the night, with hair-raising grooves and rambunctious (but tight) guitar solos. I’m not too familiar with Kyle’s recorded work, but seeing him on stage, it struck me that he could use a song editor. I heard segments and snippets of terrific songcraft, but too often they got lost in a sense of randomness.
In all, the Beauvilles set would’ve benefited from a tighter presentation of the songs, but it was a captivating performance nevertheless.
Will Quinlan and his band opened the evening around 9 with a half-hour of expertly penned Americana songs. Frankly, I’ve seen Quinlan when his performance bordered on maudlin — he is not a composer of many happy tunes — but last night the poker-faced performer brought the rock and something akin to effervescence.
Quinlan was followed by Have Gun, Will Travel. I don’t feel good admitting this, but last night during their set, I was mostly outside listening to my pal Scott Harrell rant about the sorry state of America. I did make it back for HGWT’s rousing closer that had a boisterous Celtic/Appalachian vibe. That song, and the set as whole, earned the band enthusiastic applause. My bad.
Have Gun, Will Travel
In the end, the Geri X CD release show was a successful evening of music by Bay area bands, well worth anyone’s while. The crowd, in the final analysis, was a bigger-than-usual group of the usual suspects. Despite all the advance media coverage, very few of our non-scenester neighbors put this one on the don’t-miss list. They were probably at Marley and Me or Outback Steakhouse.
Alas, this is the community in which we live. We must look at the show of support for Geri X last night as a victory, if a rather small one.
Photos by Jamie Ostrand
January 18th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I had a great time and def thought the crowd looked pretty good, considering it was all locals on the bill.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I have to say it was the biggest turnout at State for a local artist I’ve ever seen and that’s not because I’m in the band. It was amazing.
-MB
January 19th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I think that it was a definite success. The audience was there to listen. I heard people hush one another during Geri X’s set.
A major problem with attendance here locally is that many bands play too many shows too often instead of making their shows into an event like this one.
If every local bill was as solid and quality as this one was, with the diversity in the acts as well, where there was a bit of something for everyone, and it was promoted in advance by at least a month there would be higher attendance across the board.
It is pretty telling that the scene has changed, with each of these groups having a draw between 250-400 people at each of their separate local CD release shows in the last year at established venues. I have not seen that here in some time, and while it is not enough to fill the floor and the balcony at the State; the floor area was packed. I think that it is a sign that things are getting better, and that local media is supporting the artists once again, not the least because there are many artists here that deserve that support.