The acts of the evening were Blind Pilot (basically my musical obsession for the last few months) and Loch Lomond. Two acts that quite simply need to be seen and loved by all.

This was the first time that I have had a chance to see Loch Lomond, and I was honestly blown away. Ritchie Young has a voice and presence that has to be seen and heard live to fully appreciate. I would say he is the hipster reincarnation of Paul Simon...but I think Paul Simon would have to die first, so we'll just say he's channeling some of the same mojo.

Blind Pilot put on an absolutely amazing show, as always. This performance was quite different from the one we saw up in Seattle in October, but it was still very very good. The big difference seemed to come from the fact that they were playing to a much larger venue and thus lacked the same intimate connection we fell in love with at the Tractor Tavern, and they also seemed to tweak their sound a little for the evening. Speeding up songs that were slower and more melancholy on album and at the last performance we attended and even taking new creative license with some of their more popular tracks, all received with large excitement from the crowd.

It's been an amazing few months watching Blind Pilot launch onto the music scene gathering more and more national attention and making it clear that they have no where but up to go. I am genuinely happy for them and can't wait to see what comes down the pipe next. This collection of artists headed by Israel and Ryan is one of the great new gifts Portland has to offer to the rest of the world, and we're just happy that we get to watch it all unfold.

With all the praise and adoration done, it seems that the new big thing is the formation of "Huge Bands". The term was taken from Israel tonight as he described the collection of bands that were performing. All three had large line ups ranging from 7-11 in total. I've been noticing this new trend over the last year really taking off. Perhaps this is all a repercussion of the Decemberists and their success, but with Blind Pilot, Loch Lomond, The Builders and the Butchers and Autopilot is for Lovers all taking leading places in the current Portland Pop Scene and all boasting large group numbers, I really think that this may be the "Next Big Thing".

I personally welcome the change. It's been a breath of fresh air seeing acts that decidedly lack the standard Lead Singer, Lead Guitar, Bass and Drum line up and moving into new territory with instruments like the xylophone and accordion taking front stage and even seeing fiddles and violins starting to become instruments of note. Finally, the band geeks are getting their time in the limelight. 

With this all said, I am really looking forward to later this week where we will be covering The Wanted. This band sort of flies in the face of everything we have been covering lately and should be a total blast. Check in in about a week and we'll have a full review posted going over what we thought.

I hope that you all have been having a great weekend, and as always feel free to e-mail me. I'm going to be taking the roll of slave for my wife as she sets me on various projects to start beautifying the new house, so any excuse to sit on the computer for a little bit and be in touch with you, the readers, is a welcome distraction.

Also, look forward to us introducing streaming music from the artists we cover starting the next week or so. I'm currently ironing out the wrinkles with a couple player options and then getting clearance from bands and labels and what not, but we will hopefully be able to provide you fine people with some examples of what we are telling you to go listen to.

Talk to you all soon, and check out the video below of Loch Lomond. They'll be playing up at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle on the 28th of this month. It'll almost certainly be a life changing show to see for sure and we recommend getting up to it whole heartedly.

Jake Carlsen

Editor for LiveMusicPDX.com

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