Dressed in stylishly coordinated black attire, the Raveonettes descended on Seattle’s Triple Door last night (June 5) for a quiet yet striking show. “We’ve never played here before, but it looks really fancy,” said Sune Rose Wagner, the male half of the noir-ish Copenhagen duo.
A packed, yet not quite sold-out crowd of twenty-somethings and aging music aficionados sat stadium style at a series of booths, some wining and dining, as opening act Midnight Movies started off the evening in stellar fashion. Playing tunes from their latest LP, Lion the Girl, the L.A.-based trio’s sound drew equally from Jefferson Airplane-era psychedelia and the fuzzy reverb sounds of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
As Sharin Foo stalked the stage with a glass of wine and her Kate Moss-like good looks, the Raveonettes found their footing while performing fan favorites like “Attack of the Ghost Riders” and “Love Can Destroy Anything.” Their adroit selection of covers — Sonic Youth “100%,” and a slinky version of Gun Club’s “Sex Beat” — came of seamlessly. But the Raveonettes’ new material, however, shunned the monochromatic tone of earlier albums, but exhibited their penchant for dissonant harmonies. Midnight Movies drummer Sandra Vu helped flesh out the duo’s guitar-driven melodies on fresh songs such as “Lust,” “Black Satin” and “The Beat Dies.” Utilizing Wagner and Foo’s ability to play off each other musically, the new tunes yielded a much more lush, romantic sound different from the Raveonettes’ usual doom and gloom.
We asked: While recording their first album, the Raveonettes set a series of rules for themselves (writing all songs in B-minor, not recording anything longer than three minutes, etc.). If you were to record music, what crazy rules and regulations would you set for yourself?
