before SXSW, The Twilight Sad played MHOW w/ Forest Fire & Micah P Hinson (pics & setlist)

words & photos by Dominick Mastrangelo

The Twilight Sad @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

The Twilight Sad shrugged off a crazy week to deliver a blistering performance to open their US tour at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on 2/25. The band saw the first two shows of their tour in D.C. and Philadelphia cancelled due to visa issues that had the Scottish rockers venturing all the way to Paris to secure passage to the states. None of that seemed to matter once they took the stage though, as they mixed older songs (like the excellent “Cold Days From The Birdhouse” and “She Would Darken The Memory Of Youth”) with songs from their new, synth-laden record, No One Can Ever Know (Fat Cat).

Of the new material, set opener “Kill It In The Morning” rocked the hardest. Other highlights included the Radiohead-inflected, “Sick”, and the propulsive “Dead City”. Icier and more polished on the record, the new songs at the Music Hall slotted in seamlessly with the wall of guitar immediacy of the band’s earlier material, thanks in large part to the work of guitarist Andy MacFarlane, who made it sound as if there were three guitarists on stage not one. And all the while lead singer, James Graham, was in perpetual motion – moving about the stage and around the microphone stand, dropping to his knees as he belted out one line and up on his toes to wail another in his distinctive Scottish brogue.

New Fat Cat signing, Forest Fire, and the quite excellent Micah P. Hinson opened. Hinson received a lengthy and fully deserved applause following his set, with people in the crowd shouting for him to play one more. I wish he had.

The Twilight Sad have since hit SXSW where they played the BrooklynVegan day party at “Hotel Vegan” on Friday. More on that one later. More pictures from the Brooklyn show, setlist included, below…

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Micah P. Hinson

Forest Fire

Twilight Sad