I can't remember the last time I accidentally stumbled upon a band I just knew knew I had to make a fuss about. The writer in me was already stringing together words the moment the first chord started, like I'd finally experienced the much-fantasized-over feat of discovering a band not many people know about, but that's so fucking good you know they're about to. That's how I felt wide-eyed, head-nodding, mesmerized last Friday at Our Wicked Lady when I heard SKORTS.
I've seen plenty of rock bands recently, but none have tickled my senses, forced me into dancing and made me gasp at their energy like SKORTS. Was it the lead vocalist's command over their vocals as if it was another instrument to hold, like the guitar around her neck? The bassist leaning on the ground as if we'd time-traveled to some dive venue in the '70s? Or perhaps it was the guitarist leaping into the crowd without losing his breath?
Regardless, me with my swirling hips, the gentlemen beside me head-banging, and the girl to my left shifting back and forth — we were all in on it, like one big wave.
Listening to SKORTS' track "Bodies," back at home the same feeling swelled up again. That swaggering guitar riff, the hypnotizing vocals, the melodic howling before they sing, "take it slow," the guitar's languid pace. And then again in the words "I won't be your fake prophet" in the opening of "Steal The Night." It's there in the pulsating rhythm driving "Eat Your Heart Out."
In a world so clearly saturated in music (for better or worse), how reliving to wake up your bones and realize you're not jaded, that you can still get the fuck up, that you can still wish the set was (at least) two songs longer, long after the band leaves the stage. To think, all you needed was some SKORTS.
How lucky am I to catch such a clean, psychedelic, fluid sound at my local, tiny rooftop bar? How lucky am I to experience rock music this good at this moment?
Photography: Toby Tenenbaum
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