The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Surfer Blood and Hooray for Earth at Daniel Street (6/3)

(Surfer Blood ending their set)

Leisurely review pace.

Very loud - but still awesome - show at Daniel Street in Milford Thursday night.

I was mostly looking forward to Surfer Blood (pictured above) because we've been listening to their album a lot, and it's really good - and perfect for summer. Surfer Blood performed second - in between Hooray for Earth and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - and despite a bunch of technical difficulty, some speaker pitch problems and all of that being amplified by how loud it was, I enjoyed their set. Even with those problems, Surfer Blood has some really good songs, and with that foundation, it's hard to really have a bad performance. It was also being videotaped for a website, so I think that's why they took forever to start playing (lots of mic and instrument checks), but also why they really rocked it. They ended every song like it was the last song (maybe this was because it was being recorded?), and went all out at the end, bringing a drum into the crowd for someone to play and standing in and over the crowd, as pictured above. I didn't mind that my ears felt cloudy after a concert for the first time in years.


(The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Couldn't get a good picture, and the ones that were clearer featured the back of a bald head in the audience, so I decided to go with this cool, blurry one.)

Next was The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and they were really good. Toned down a bit from the Surfer Blood set, but still very danceable. Very good live. I was very surprised by how good Hooray for Earth's electronic pop with lots of synth was, and the fact that I was surprised made their set that much better. Two drummers and lots of musicianship. They were a great start, and great complement to Surfer Blood and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and I actually picked up a CD afterward.