Concert Review: Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos

Kyle seems to be taking his sweet ass time making his next post, so I'm just gonna go ahead and make a post now. As some of you know, we went to a show this last Thursday at Shubas, off of the Belmont stop on the Red Line. The headliner was Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, an indie octet (yes that's right octet) hailing from Indianapolis, and they were preceded by three openers.

I arrived late and missed about half of the opener, but that suited me fine because they were terrible. It was some guy with an acoustic guitar and a girl singing harmony. The guy couldn't sing in key and his guitar work wasn't impressive either. I think Jordan put it best when he said that it sounded like someone playing Guitar Hero and messing up a lot. I never found out what they were called, but I don't think it's too important.

The next two openers were The Bees out of Nashville and Dr. Dog from Philadelphia. I hadn't listened to either group beforehand so it's hard to comment on them too much. The Bees had some nice songs, but they tended to sound similar after awhile. Dr. Dog played an interesting style of alternative rock that was filled with unique and constantly changing guitar lines and plenty of energy.

The main problem with the openers was that they were give too long of sets. The concert started at 9pm, and Margot didn't hit the stage til around midnight. Halfway through their set the crowd was getting noticeably smaller, which should never happen during the headliner. But despite this they put on a good show. They played most of the stuff off of their 2005 debut The Dust Of Retreat, along with some new songs off of their upcoming record that they are currently working on.

As I said earlier they have eight members, including a trumpet player, violin player, and second percussionist. This worked to both their advantage and disadvantage. With the wide range of instruments they were able to achieve very rich and distinct sounds in their songs that you rarely hear at concerts like this, but at the same time everyone in the group felt the need to be playing something almost all the time, and it was almost too much at times.

While I'm not a huge fan of more indie style shows where everyone stands around and just nods their head, I did have a good time at the show. My only complaint was getting home at about 2:15am, and I mostly blame this on the venue who gave the openers too long of sets.

-Alec