After a particularly smashing weekend of local music Halloween madness, I was excited to have an evening of dastardly decompression at Brick and Mortar Music Hall with Hey Rosetta.
And while I don’t typically showcase touring talent, I thought it fitting to make an exception for these accomplished Canucks, who I first saw locally at the Rickshaw Stop back in 2011.
Hey Rosetta is an incredibly tight band that goes from heartfelt melodic whispers to distorted guitar explosivity at the drop of a hat. Singer/songwriter Tim Baker leads the group back and forth between these two extremes, and their swelling sense of dynamics is remarkable to behold live.
One part rock band and one part micro-orchestra, Hey Rosetta includes multi-instrumentalists Romesh Thavanathan, Kinley Dowling, and Mara Pellerin, who plays the cello, violin, and french horn respectively.
Each of them also plays keys and sings, and so their show was something of a musical ‘musical chairs,’ as band members shuffled around on stage and settled into a slightly different configuration for each song.
Celebrating their 10 year anniversary as a band and their excellent new album Second Sight, Hey Rosetta returned in November 2015 to a warm and enthusiastic crowd. Their set focused primarily on their new record (Soft Offering for the Oft Suffering, Harriet, Kid Gloves, Alcatraz) as well as favorites from their 2011 album Seeds (Young Glass, Welcome).
Local trio Scary Little Friends opened up the show. Their combination of tight vocal heavy surf-rock, which oscillated from rhythmically driving to light and introspective, was a welcome addition to the line-up. As were Hey Rosetta’s tourmates Yukon Blonde, who play a sort of freewheeling-Americana-meets-synth-rock. All in all, I had a great Monday night. And with Hey Rosetta’s music in your eardrums, this too could be your reward. This could be it.
Watch Hey Rosetta’s 2010 La Blogotheque performance, which was filmed in what appears to be a parking garage with a view of the TransAmerica pyramid (???) below:
