Mon., Feb. 8 2010 @ 11:08AM
By many accounts, a Girls concert is an inert affair. This assessment is usually the result of sizing up the band's unusual biography against the near-universal appeal of its debut album -- and then seeing the band live. Anything less than the pale Nazarene himself taking the stage and playing guitar all night with his feet leaves folks feeling underwhelmed. After first accounting for the well-known Gargoyle Effect™ (poor acoustics, sauna warm, no sightlines, no beer, ferocious student b.o.), I would say that Girls delivered exactly the vibe you'd expect from its songs: warm, staid and fringed with panic.
Most of the show focused on lead singer Christopher Owens, whose woebegone manner and chessmaster-cool surround him with a nimbus wherever he travels on stage. While Girls has another half in multi-instrumentalist JR White, there is no question that Owens is the source of the band's draw -- as is his voice, which (at least last night) deepened like a coastal shelf over the course of the show.