The Brunettes

This past weekend I went to two (!) concerts. Both of them featured the Brunettes prominently in the line-up, in that they were in the line-up. This is the band that opened up for the Shins a few weeks back. They're a boy-girl band from New Zealand with a glockenspiel, wind section, and castinets (there's also a slide guitar in there somewhere). I think they may be my new favorite band, though their recordings suffer from lo-fi production, which doesn't really compliment their complex instrumentation. Their live show however, is phenomenal. Not only do they play great music, but their constantly switching between instruments results in a pretty manic performance. At one point, the female vocalist was singing, playing the keyboards with her left hand and the glockenspiel with her right. How hot is that? I heart them. Sadly, though, they have returned to Auckland perhaps never to be seen on the east coast again. Hope is alive, however. Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley was at their fairwell show on Monday (they'd just finished a tour opening for Rilo Kiley), which means she is a fan and perhaps will ask them to be touring mates again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...