Overdue Recap: Little Dragon, Manuok, Anomie Belle @ Beauty Bar

Yes, it is December and I'm a couple weeks behind in show postings. So last I left off, I posted about Angus & Julia Stone at The Loft. The next night I thought Justin from OAKS was DJing at the Ken so I walked over with my laptop, instead I walked in on Christopher singing Karaoke to Missy and decided I would stick around through the mostly terrible renditions of mostly 90s crap. It was fun oddly enough, and my wi-fi was working so I cleaned up my e-mail inboxes while hanging out.

On Wednesday, I wrote a lot and didn't go out. I guess you could say I've been nesting at home more than I have in the past.

Come Thursday, I had plans to meet my friend Jack at the House of Blues for Happy Hour. While I've had my issues with HoB as a venue, I have to say I've really grown to love the bartenders there and their happy hour is hard to beat. $2 domestic pints, $3 imports, $3 wells, and $4 wine, plus I can enjoy the catfish nuggets and fries for under $5. We hung out for a while and met a Ukranian guy who was visiting from South Carolina. When happy hour ended, I convinced them to check out Chee Chee until Jack left and Dmitry and I ended up going to Beauty Bar for Little Dragon, Manuok, and Anomie Belle. It was a great show and we had a blast and met some cool peeps (pictured below). The lights there are not my friend, but I did take some pics and video. Read the rest if you 'keep on reading'.




The night started with Anomie Belle. I knew nothing about the band going in, but their sweet 3 part all girl vocal harmonies were a great way to start the night. I vaguely remember thinking it reminded me of early Zero 7 material.




Manuok was celebrating their CD release to a very receptive crowd. I geel like this one of the most upbeat performances I'd seen of Scott and crew, and he was smiling throughout the show, which was reciprocated by sheer enjoyment from the enthusiastic crowd.




Closing out the night was Little Dragon. Kristian turned me on to Little Dragon a while back and I thought they were ok, but took his recommendation with a grain of salt because (a) he insanely loves female fronted groups (b)he believes Sweden has the hottest music scene at the moment. I'd also seen Yukimi when she attempted to play melodica with Jose Gonzalez and in my opinion, jacked up his songs. (Ask Daye or read about it here.) But I have to say, I was definitely into this performance. Yukimi dances barefoot all over the stage, spazzing out with some fusion of gypsy freak out ballet. You couldn't take your eyes off of her. There's some soul undertones to her music that make me think there are probably dance remixes of her music bumping in night clubs in big cities across the country, and if there aren't there should be.


And though you really can't see anything in this video, you can definitely hear her sultry voice.


So, all in all I have to say it was a good day- saw old friends, met some new ones, and saw three great bands. No complaints here. For more videos, go to my YouTube page.