The Lonely Forest - Neumo's May 14th, 2009
So I went to go see The Lonely Forest last night at Neumos - they were the 2nd act for the Jeremy Enigk concert - and I was absolutely blown away. There is no denying the talent of that band, their live show is very impressive - I haven’t seen a rock band that tight since Queens of the Stone Age (caveat: I don’t go to many shows).
The first thing you notice about LF is their lead singer, John Van Deusen. Apparently he’s a big Jeremy Enigk fan, because after ripping through his first song he sheepishly remarked he’s “never this nervous onstage”, but it certainly didn’t show. He’s pretty much exactly what you want in a frontman: a charismatic face of the band with an amazing voice (oh I guess he does ok writing songs too). There’s a reason he’s often compared to Ben Folds, he’s a great piano player as well. I figured his high register was a studio-only thing, but he brought his chops last night, hitting some very high notes. My favorite part vocally was when he brought a girl onstage to help him sing “Tomato Soup”; which starts out as a slow ballad but builds into something more intense.
The second thing you notice is Braydn Krueger, who is a fucking beast. Just a warning: I am going to geek out about drummer stuff in this section, so you might want to skip ahead.
As a rock drummer, I hope that I can play more like this guy. The first thing that comes to mind watching him play is the obvious similarities to John Bonham or Patrick Hallahan from My Morning Jacket. He’s got crazy intensity and the chops to match. Is there something I don’t know about beards and crazy long hair? I need to look into this. Two other fair comparisons would be QOTSA’s drummer Joey Castillo or Dave Grohl.
However, what really sets him apart is his tastefulness. He played a lot of cool fills and licks last night, but they were never overbearing or too much for the song. He structures his fills: it doesn’t sound like a bunch of different licks smashed together, but rather a constructed solo that builds and plays off of the previous notes. For the life of me I can’t remember which song they played second to last, but he had a beautifully built set of fills, slowly getting more and more intense until he absolutely tore it up on the final fill. I don’t know if he’s played jazz before, but the best way to describe his style is if you took a big band player and told him to play rock. He accents the melody as well as any big band drummer does when he plays the “hits”, but it is unquestionably rock. Needless to say, he’s a great musician and I anticipate I won’t be the only drummer raving about him for long.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much to add for the bass player (Eric Sturgeon) or the second guitarist (Tony Ruland). Don’t get me wrong, they were awesome and Ruland definitely had some great solos…I just really only pay attention to drummers. My bad. However, the whole band really shined on songs like “Far Outer Banks”, “They’re On To Something”, and the aforementioned “Tomato Soup”. The only disappointment I had the whole show was their last song, “We Sing In Time”. It felt a little slow and wasn’t nearly as tight as the other songs were, but it was by no means bad.
In conclusion, GO SEE THE LONELY FOREST! They play at Folklife, so if you’re in Seattle then definitely go check them out. They put on an extremely tight and entertaining live show, and I can guarantee their ticket prices will only go up, so why not go see them for free? At this point I’d probably kill a homeless man to see a few more of their shows.
I can’t say much about Jeremy Enigk, as I had never heard of him before last night. Actually, my friends and I almost left after The Lonely Forest until some guy next to us convinced us to stay. Thank god he did, because Jeremy Enigk is fucking talented. Enigk’s high-register vocals reminded me a lot of Freddy Mercury, and even with an orchestra (he called them the “Seattle Rock Orchestra”) it still was uplifting and intense. All in all, a damn good show and I’m glad I went.
