Live Review: Mercury Lounge
May 14, 2009 
By: Faetra Petillo 
Rating: 10/11

In many ways, music can be a lot like love and sometimes it’s not good to fall fast and hard from a distance. When you fall in love with a band’s mixed, edited and fine-tuned album, seeing them live can bring about all the apprehension of a blind date. There’s always the possibility that the real life, up-close and uncensored version of your love will pale in comparison to the fantasy. It’s happened many times before and while it doesn’t ruin an album, it certainly taints my views of a band. When I arrived at the Mercury Lounge on May 14^th to see Brooklyn-based band The Spring Standards, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Lucky for me, The Spring Standards completely blew the show out of the water. They are one of those rare bands that don’t come to a venue simply to play some live music. They come to a venue to put on a show, to give their fans an intimate and fun experience that extends beyond merely instruments and vocals.

The trio, consisting of James Cleare, James Smith and Heather Robb, immediately set the evening off on a high not when, as the band and crew were tying up their loose ends getting ready to begin, Heather approached the mic and told the crowd, “I don’t know about you guys but I’m three-quarters of the way through the best night of my life.” As soon as everything was prepped they started heavily strumming and banging on their respective instruments and were met by wild applause and screams. They launched right in to the upbeat, old-time country number “Little Bird” off of their EP album. The song was catchy and soulful, boasting some seriously funny lyrics about a toxic romance with the chorus ending with, “She may be my baby but she’s no friend of mine.” The next few songs continued with the same tone and tempo, including another popular track from their EP, “Goodbye Midnight.” After a few more popping dance-ey tunes, they slowed it down a bit with “Your Lie,” a soulful song that picked up at certain points in the chorus and was beautifully backed up by Cleare’s harmonica. After that came a new song with Heather on lead vocals, titled “Coffee Please.” They continued this pace for the rest of the show: picking up the tempo then slowing it back down. In total, the band played close to fifteen songs, which is not only an impressive feat physically and emotionally but also requires some very specific balancing. Bands don’t want to wear their audience out with too much pep all in a row, nor do they want to start depressing them with too many heavy ballads back to back. The Spring Standards knew exactly what to play and when to play it. They had a real sense of the energy in the room and nicely played off of it.

And speaking of playing off of energies, they deserve kudos for the way they play off of each other. Seeing a band live exposes all of the little intricacies of how they work as a team, and The Spring Standards were a joy to watch. The three of them pick up on each other’s jokes, finish each other’s thoughts, make constant eye contact throughout a song and harmonize perfectly, instrumentally and vocally. They were accessible, constantly engaging the audience between songs, telling the personal back stories of how something they were about to play came in to creation, and on more than one occasion made everyone laugh out loud with their sarcastic sense of humor.  There was also no ego involved at all; they absolutely gushed about their opening acts on more than one occasion and made a point of mentioning the music community that they’ve been fortunate enough to work with. Their set was filled with a copious amount of thank you’s and gratefulness. At one point they brought friend Pete Laylish onto the stage as a friend and a collaborator and rocked the house with a folky number.

Overall, it was an amazing set by an amazing group. The Spring Standards are absolutely magnanimous.  There were extended periods of time where I couldn’t take my eyes off of Heather; her energy was so fierce. Their tunes are the perfect mix of folk, country and old school rock n’ roll and their lyrics clever. And the Mercury Lounge, which can sometimes turn into a madhouse as hot as the fifth circle of hell, was actually bearable. It was a perfect crowd for a Thursday night: not too crazy that you can’t move or get a beer but enough to fill the room with some seriously positive energy. The sound, which can also be hit or miss there, was clear and wonderfully mixed. The band had hardly any adjustment requests throughout their set and you could hear each person and instrument equally. The only (very minor) downside to the nice was that the light show got a bit distracting.  Sometimes I wasn’t sure if the sudden blackouts were intentional or not. There were far too many cues for a band that really didn’t need any…pardon the pun…”Bells and Whistles” (a song of theirs).

Right now they are headed out on tour and aren’t sure when they will be back in New York.  But when they return, they’ve certainly acquired a groupie in me. Even if you don’t get to see them live, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of their EP album. Unfortunately the album doesn’t have all of their songs on it; they played a ton of songs at their show that as of now can’t be bought.  But rest assured, they are working on their new full-length album which can’t hit the shelves soon enough.