Owl City + The Elements @ Birmingham Academy, 22nd February 2010

This could all have easily ended up massively confusing, most probably very off putting and more than likely end in a night to remember for all the wrong reasons. Tonight, Birmingham Academy is hosting two gigs featuring acts from complete opposite ends of the musical spectrum. The largest of the three rooms hosts an evening of Thrash Metal with headliners ‘Machine Head’. The middle-sized room hosts the very current darlings of daytime Radio. Hailing from Owatonna, Minnesota the not nearly as new as you think newcomers Owl City. There are queues and people aplenty outside of the venue so pause for one moment and imagine you’re unfortunate enough to have found yourself in the wrong room. It could be just enough to put you off live music for life!

Lights the original support act have pulled out of tonight’s gig due to illness which allows acoustic duo The Elements to step in at the absolute death and fill the vacant slot. Only tonight one half of the duo is missing leaving the other 50% playing solo. Confused? Me too… The self confessed local boy, used to performing in pubs plays several well-received bluesy, rock and roll tracks. Some of which seem heavily influenced by Elvis’ Blue Jeans era. By around the fourth number the crowd really start warming to him as arms are lofted into the air like daffodils swaying in the wind and the applause after each number gets louder and longer.

It has to be a nerve racking experience volunteering at the last minute, performing solo and playing to a sold out academy crowd when you usually play the Actress and Bishop every Wednesday. Suffice to say it was pulled off with elements (pun intended) of style and not a sign of nerves. Having searched for more information on The Elements I’ve not been able to find a single thing apart from the weekly Wednesday Actress and Bishop show.

Tonight’s crowd is pretty young and evenly mixed it seems, although scattered around the venue are small clusters of teenage girls wearing an assortment of fairy wings and teddy bear back packs. Add to the mix a reasonable selection of parents standing lonesome at the back and you gain a good insight of your typical Owl City fan. A touch younger and more female biased than anticipated but I presume this is expected when you’re an early twenties emo male having recently topped the UK singles chart.

As the clock strikes 9:00 five black and white dressed figures stride out onto the stage amid high pitch cheers and commence playing an elongated intro to ‘Umbrella Beach’. Moments later Adam Young, the insomniac youngster and the reason Owl City exists skips to the mic front of stage surrounded by even louder, higher pitched screams.

Right, at this point I’m going to apologies to all those that loved the show and thought travelling up from Weston Super Mare was a more than worthwhile trek. Since the inception of Owl City in 2007 there have been several well documented articles suggesting Adam Young is a blatant rip off of ‘The Postal Service’ I was really hoping not to mention TPS but it’s difficult not to. There are obvious similarities although scratch beneath the surface and the similarities soon widen. Both bands main focus is without doubt on the synthesized elements and the breathy, soft male vocals. Whereas TPS manage to tread a fine line and maintain their Indie pop sound. Owl City manages to cross that invisible marker line and produce a live set that’s almost nothing but mainstream electronic pop. Adam’s on stage movements appear forced and orchestrated; Violinist Laura Musten and Cellist Hannah Schroeder become awkward backing dancers when not playing their respective string instruments. In truth, I was disappointed. Both Owl City recorded albums are electronic pop but manage to avoid sounding overtly mainstream. Live, that feeling just gets lost in the well rehearsed, orchestrated performance.

There were a small number of moments when songs did take on an emotive feel, although none of these moments featured Adam. The voice of Breanne Düren has a cute, angelic pitch that finally brings a much-needed emotion to the show. The strings of Laura and Hannah bring an extra depth to the tracks and fortunately enable Owl City to lose the tag of being ‘Just another Pop Act’. Some tracks featured some really good live drum breaks that brought out extra hidden depths. Musically, all the elements are there to really bring the songs alive and inject that vital missing element – Soul. Instead, the show came across as being soulless, artificial, synthetically grown for a live audience rather than allowed to mature organically and allow genuine heart felt interaction

I had a really good feeling going into this gig, hoping to hear a successor to the brilliance of TPS. It’s not fair to write Owl City off just yet, it’s still early days and they most definitely have the potential – they just need to tap into it. Know which part of the band brings the soul and allow it to shine through. Owl City hatched from the egg long enough ago to know how to fly. Only time will tell how far that flight takes them.

Review Lee Hathaway
Photos Keith West

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