Joywave Plays Sold Out 7th St. Entry

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I am guessing most of you were busy yesterday prepping for the big day, but have no fear, Alex is here to give you the details on the great sold out Joywave show you missed (or didn’t and you wanted to see some great photos to help you remember). Rochester, NY’s Maybird opened the show (coincidentally they are friends with Joywave since they grew up in the same town. They recently signed with Danger Mouse’s label, “30th Century Records”, and their new EP Unraveling was produced by The Black Keys‘ Patrick Carney.

Their lead singer, Josh Netsky, has some incredibly beautiful vocals that are really accented well with the sometimes modulated guitar backing of Sam Snyder and Kurt Johnson. “To The Stars” is a great example of this sound. The audience really grooved along. I got to chat with Josh a bit after the show, really nice guy. He gave me a demo of the new EP and it’s great, be sure to check it out.

The Aces took the stage, they are from Utah they proudly proclaim. This is their first tour and more importantly their first time in Minneapolis, ever. They ask the crowd if anyone in the crowd had heard of them before and two people in the front raised their hands. They immediately got high-fives. I like it. They are touring on their EP I Don’t Like Being Honest. They played a few of their singles, like “Volcanic Love” which led them into their cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit“. I would say covering maybe the most famous grunge song of all-time is ballsy, but you know how I have a thing for bands playing music that was originally from another gender. So a four piece female rock band covering Nirvana is pretty much up there on the awesome scale. The audience definitely approved. The best way I can describe the band is if the band HAIM dressed and had the stage presence of The Runaways. They have a great heavy bass sound with really plucky guitar riffs.

Cristal Ramirez (vocals, guitar) leads the group very well. In my opinion it’s hard to get the audience pumped up when you have limited room from other bands’ gear around you, but she crushed it. She has a fantastic voice, she uses this falsetto vibrato in her voice to flutter ending notes that is just so good. They get into their song “Physical” off their new EP and did a great call and response with the crowd.

She’s backed up by Katie Henderson who is rocking these amazing golden velour pants that I cannot stop looking at, their clothes are awesome if I didn’t mentioned that before. Also, going back to my previous point, Katie absolutely destroys the solo for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. They play really well together, Cristal and McKenna Petty (bass), dance and play off each other a lot which is great. Alisa Ramirez (yes, they are sisters) is so awesome on the drums, I will not lie I have a huge crush on her, and yes that applies to the whole band. They are fantastic. They ended their set on “Stuck“, the single off their new EP. If you like the sound of HAIM, or just great upbeat rock in general, definitely check out The Aces and their new EP!

Oddly enough, when they were wrapping out, the music was oddly amazing, first the music was mash up songs like “Fat Lip” and “Wonderwall” together that somehow it worked. The crowd was enjoying it. But the best part was when they just started to play really slowed down songs like “B.Y.O.B” by System of a Down. I have almost never mentioned this before when writing, but it was so oddly amazing, I had to make note of this.

Finally from the darkness, the sound of a dial up modem is heard and Joywave (also from Rochester, NY) takes the stage. They just came out with their new album, Content this summer. Interesting enough, I actually photographed their debut show at Red Rocks Amphitheater this year which was awesome. I am excited to hear a longer set from them, since they were the opener for Young the Giant for Red Rocks. They start their set on the title track, “Content“. A great slow burning song that has a killer breakdown.

Daniel Armbruster, vocals/guitar, is sporting his patented mustache. He’s fighting a little bit of a cough but isn’t letting it get the best of him. He’s got a solid range in his voice, he’s still hitting his notes hard and even the few times it gets modulated it sounded fine. Dan is really energetic, lots of fist pumps and jumping around, the crowd jumps around with him too. Really the crowd loves the new album and is shouting out most of the words to these songs. Joywave has a great foundation of music since they are mixing some great songs from their last two albums, How Do You Feel Now? and SWISH. Their set decoration is very minimal, there are two light pillars on each side of the stage with what look like incredibly old computer monitors playing visuals.

Dan is really good at interacting with the crowd, he asked the crowd what they were doing for Thanksgiving and felt bad for the woman that is working thanksgiving, since he used to work at Staples. He mentions that the band will be eating Thanksgiving dinner at Denny’s in Iowa. Which, he says, he’d rather do than work Thanksgiving (or Black Friday) for that matter and the audience agreed. Coincidentally, the Minnesota Wild hockey team played the Sabres that night and won much to the chagrin of the band. Of course there is always one Red Wings fan that always feels the need to make sure that they know they are also a hockey team and yells from the back.

The band jumps into “Parade” a smash hit from How Do You Feel Now? He asks everyone to jump around and they do. The place is getting really hot. Even Benjamin Bailey (Keys) lets loose in his own way. He’s rocking dark red nail polish and is grooving along. Joseph Morinelli (Lead Guitar) has a few shining moments on the riffs and solos, but mostly likes to stay in the back near Sean Donnelly (Bass).

I will say that a big highlight of the show, for me, was Paul Brenner. He is an incredible drummer, and I feel it needs to be noted because I don’t think I’ve been more blown away by a drummer since seeing Bloc Party’s old drummer Matt Tong perform live. It’s pretty amazing to watch Paul’s purple hair bounce around, but he does some pretty incredible stuff on the drums, definitely something to watch. He’s fantastic, stretching to get the riffs on the floor toms while hitting beats on the hi-hat is incredibly difficult, “Rumors” and “Doubt” require a lot to perform but it’s nothing to Paul.

They break it down for the next song for “Traveling at the Speed of Light“, it has a bit more atmospheric sounds to it than their other songs. There are some great licks on the guitar for solos especially as they jump into “Destruction” which is an absolute banger from their last album. People lost their minds. Did I mention it got really hot? Everyone is jumping around. There’s a reason that this show sold out weeks prior, Joywave puts on a hell of a show. They jump into “Doubt” off their new album and Dan asks the crowd to sing the chorus and they do without hesitation. They rock through a few of their other stellar hits like “Somebody New” and another great one off their new album, “Going To A Place” before coming back out for their encore.

Their new album is fantastic, you should absolutely check it out. They have plans for more headlining tours next year to help promote the new album, unfortunately Minneapolis isn’t on the list as of now, but they promised they’d be back.

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