Austin – Having ignored Gomez for the past few albums, I went into the concert on Thursday night with mild expectations. Most of my Gomez experience has been with the albums ‘Bring it On’ and ‘Liquid Skin’ so I was expecting a folksy – bluesy kind of show. Little did I know that in the decade since ‘Bring it on’, the Southport 5-some has transformed themselves from a folksy/bluesy band to an adult contemporary rock band. I should have known that this was not the Gomez I listened to when I saw the band setting up and there was a laptop with a synth there.
Arriving on to the stage, Ian Ball immediately asked if the crowd’s feet were ‘glued to the floor’ and urged them to start dancing. I was like, what? Apparently this new version of Gomez features a steady diet of guitar rock mixed with some synth action. This is the new Gomez. They were good. Ben Ottewell’s voice is so unique in that sandy sounding bluesy way. Having three vocalists, you can really see the band use each persons voice to great effect. They played a bunch of songs I didn’t know, but all of them sounded pretty good. One of the songs I knew – Girlshapedlovedrug had a great reaction from the packed crowd at Stubbs. “See the World” also got a good response. It is also nice to see a band completely in their element on stage. At SXSW, a lot of times you see bands who only have been around a year or two or less, and are visibly nervous on stage when there is a large crowd. Gomez, being festival veterans, strolled out like superstars, engaged with their audience and created a good festival vibe during their set, either with witty banter, call and response and just all in all a very crisp performance.
Despite not playing ‘get myself arrested’, ’78 stone wobble’ or ‘we haven’t turned around’, I was pretty damn pleased with the show.