El Ten Eleven and Races stopped in at the New Parish in Oakland on a rainy Friday night. As it was the first stop of their tour, there were still a few kinks being worked out; that didn’t stop El Ten Eleven or Races from putting on a great show.

Races

Races
Races supported El Ten Eleven on this tour and opened the show. With Wade singing lead vocals, Devon and Breanna sang harmonies making it an edgier, great set of indie rock. Devon seemed to have endless energy spinning around the stage in a whirlwind of movement. Keep an eye out for their first full-length album coming out March 27th.

El Ten Eleven

El Ten Eleven
El Ten Eleven is an instrumental duo consisting of Kristian Dunn on guitar and bass and Tim Fogarty on drums. Kristian playing a double-necked guitar/bass and a “few” pedals, filling out the sound and making it seem like an entire five-piece band was on stage. With the fog machine getting a bit overused at times, Kristian would disappear into the haze and lights. El Ten Eleven played a huge set with a mix of songs spanning their entire catalog and new songs from their as-yet-unreleased new album. In a great show of team work, Tim got out from behind the drums and drummed on Kristian’s bass while at the same time Kristian continued to play guitar and bass!

El Ten Eleven
Check out even more badass photos HERE!

Usually we’re caught up writing about the headliners and how they live up to the hype. We’re not so sure that this show went that direction.

Kicking off the stage on Thursday night, low-key instrumentalists, El Ten Eleven absolutely blew away the crowd with their very unique stage presence. Wielding a double neck guitar with a fretless bass (a la Robert Plant, although tweaked to El Ten Eleven standards), the duo harmoniously looped extremely difficult drumbeats while playing the guitar and bass at the same time. Even though the sound system was a little overcompensated at Bottom of the Hill, these guys pulled out some of the best sliding bass rhythms and loop sequences that we’ve ever seen. They were so good in fact, that the crowd begged them to play an encore. When was the last time you saw an opener play an encore? Exactly. Most comparable to big-timers, Ratatat, but without the big hype, mainstream recognition, El Ten Eleven is greatly under-appreciated and we expect them to pull out of the underground circuit into some big time success in the near future.

Next, up were local sweethearts, Magic Bullets. Their stage presence is incredible and up beat, and the tunes something akin to old-school British pop. We loved the erratic dancing and catchy rhythms. We’d definitely be willing to check them out again.

After the build-up, iTunes superstars, Chairlift, took to the stage at Bottom of the Hill last night with a very specific goal in mind. Blend their new brand of raw artsy noise-rock with a teensy bit of their old indie pop that we all know and love so much. With a completely unexpected sound and very straightforward show, we’re still pondering if the message came fully through, but Chairlift does provide some talented musicianship in addition to their occasionally catchy tunes. Their new edgy material will definitely take some getting used to, but we are looking forward to witnessing the next direction that they take this in.