Concert Review: Teen, February 15th Drake Hotel

Formerly from Here We Go Magic, Teeny Lieberson, formed Teen in the Spring of 2011, with her two sisters and Jane Herships, who made(makes) folk music under the moniker Spider. Teen has a 60?s garage go-go sound mixed with a lo-fi electronica. On February 15th, they hit the Drake Hotel with openers The Lost Babies.

The Lost Babies were… weird. Not a really great fit with Teen I found, and while the lead singer had a great range on her voice, lyrics about doing a bunch of drugs and being a lazy, dirty person for the fun of it, don’t really do it for me anymore. I guess that’s a sign of getting old. It seemed like the band was trying to channel The Doors, but, it just wasn’t working for me. Also, again, I’ll never understand why bands that span genres get booked together outside of a festival setting. You don’t need a carbon copy of an opener, but something that meshes a bit better I would say.

Teen are definitely a great band to see the day after Valentine’s Day if you’re a bitter cat lady.  Their lyrics like in Come Back state “I don’t want to sleep another night alone”. Teen create a Brady Bunch atmosphere with their music, partially because I know that three sisters and their friend are in a band together, partially because their music has that 60’s nostalgia to it, and also because it’s a kind of pop music that makes you smile and want to hang out with your friends in a 1970’s coca-cola commercial. With only one full length album the set list definitely doesn’t have much chance at diversity, but, the vast amount of genres the band covers within their music, sometimes hitting the 80’s new-wave vibe, sometimes hitting a 70’s lou reed, bowie type psychedelia, I’m interested to see what else they come out with as they’re incredibly well rounded in blending genres and decades of pop music to create something uniquely their own.

Posted on by lauren in Concerts