Communion celebrates 1 year of Club Night shows in Philadelphia with Field Report, Quiet Life, Birdie Busch and the Greatest NIght, Marian Hill, and Weekender

A year after the first Communion show in Philadelphia, they returned again with a selection of touring and local acts at Underground Arts.  No longer festival-ish marathon of 6 bands a night, the touring club night keeps getting closer to a smashing success.

Marian Hill

Good electronic music is like a chemistry experiment, screw up a few ingredients and you've got an explosion and everything bubbling over.  It might seem cool for a minute, but it's really just a mess.  When it goes well, you've got something amazing.  Duo Jeremy Lloyd and Samantha Gongol of Marian Hill had everything go right at Communion last Thursday night!  The first ingredient gone right is the "club environment", a natural habitat for the band.   The diminutive, but delightful Samantha impressed with her vocals, while her style was focal in the Underground Arts lighting.   Jeremy was spot on with his beats, but the impressive part was the live sampling played through the keyboards, taking snippets of vocals and saxophone from the songs and putting on a display of on the fly tune making at the end of each song.  The live sax was a great touch having the instrumentation done live allowing Marian Hill to show off their compositions rather than just pulling those tones from a laptop. - Dan McGurk

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Weekender

Philadelphia’s Weekender emerged onto the Black Box Stage in heavy cloud of fog, a dreamlike haze that suited their sound. Weekender fuse the ethereal with the raw; the rhythm of pounding snare and stampeding garage bass power through layers of 80’s chorused guitars and reverb thick as questionable memories and outright confabulation. The vocals and stacked harmonies are buried deep in the mix, indistinguishable from the dream. On Thursday at Communion, they presented a set that was part Dazed and Confused, part The Breakfast Club. Theirs is the soundtrack of both: at once Linkletter’s rebellion and John Hughes’ suburban angst; as if the Brat Pack, trying desperately to recapture some Saturday afternoon magic, found themselves that same evening at John Bender’s kegger. And like that crew, Weekender cannot be defined in “the simplest terms and most convenient definitions.” You’ll just have to see them for yourself. - Mike Southerton

Weekender

Quiet Life

Upon first glance, Quiet Life was just another beardy Americana band from Portland.  But given the chance, they showed off they were so much more.  The guitar heavy Tonk-acana, were a lot of fun to watch, as they played tunes from their new Ep Housebroken Man and '13 LP Wild Pack.  They brought bits of other favorite bands from the PDX/Pacific NW, harmonies like Blind Pilot, rock sensabilites of Blitzen Trapper, country folk sounds of Head & the Heart.   Excitedly, they also showed off a little of Philly as they just recorded in Philly 'burb Clifton Heights this summer.
- Dan McGurk

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Field Report

With the fog still lingering from Weekender’s set, Milwaukee natives Field Report stood like scattered pines in a morning cloud. The slow roll of sonic waves heralded the coming electronica, but instead frontman Christopher Porterfield broke from the electronic tide with with the simple strums of his acoustic guitar, and broke into a haunting vocal twang. And so began the hour of creation: Field Report built a world all their own, full of faces familiar and strange, with long, lonely synthesized sounds meeting at untraveled crossroads somewhere in Appalachia. Field Report is smart folk, engaging, captivating: a fusion of genres you’ve heard before, but haven’t heard quite like this. They shift personas with ease: Dylan to Lennon, Costello, War on Drugs, Sigur Ros. As at home dancing in a 2 & 4 backbeat as they are sending acoustic ballads into the night. And at the core of it all are the songs: uplifting and spirited. Songs of a world you want to be a part of. And should you pick up their new record, Marigolden (released Oct. 7th), you will soon discover that you are already a part of that world, as it is a part of you.- Mike Southerton

Birdie Busch and the Greatest Night

When the idea of Communion Club Nights first came upon the radar, it seemed that repeats would be inevitable since there are only so many bands on the label.  It's ironic that local artist Birdie Busch is the first to repeat, playing the first Philadelphia Communion show last October, and coming back again this month with her band The Greatest Night.  Excitedly, it's been a while since Birdie Busch and the Greatest Night.  Somewhat a super group of Philly musicians the band was electric.  Plugged in and amazing Ross Bellenoit, Todd Erk, Tom Bendel, and more flanked Birdie as she played hits from Birdie Busch and the Greatest Night and more.   - Dan McGurk

For some more great photos of the event.. head over to Swollen Fox for their photo gallery.

Be sure to come back in November.  Highasakite, Norwegian Arms, and Vita And the Wolf highlight an amzaing lineup coming to Underground Arts on Tuesday November 6th!