KUMM hosted a concert this past Friday called March Music Madness. Three bands played. First was Cathy Crescendo, second was Kristoff Krane, and third was His Mischief.
Cathy Crescendo was good, they played well as a group, but all of their songs sort of sounded the same, and had a little bit too much emo-pop feel to them. I don’t know. The main female singer had an amazing voice, and when she and the lead male singer sang in harmony, I thought it sounded really cool. When the main male singer was singing by himself, it left a bit to be desired. Overall, they put on a decent show.
Kristoff Krane, on the other hand, was a completely different experience. He deems himself ‘experimental hip-hop’, and it really definitely was. There was no standard fast yelling, the tracks he was rapping to had some non-standard sounding instruments (horns, woodwinds), and it wasn’t all rap. He had some pieces where there was a almost a call and answer, between the rapper and the singer (both parts done by him).
The thing that interested me the most about Kris was the unorthodox way he performed. He was all about feeling, and what the audience was into. He forgot his effects pedal, and was incredibly apologetic about it. It seemed as though he was really worried about it. That said, he did this really cool section where he engaged the audience, and really just ended up having everyone humming for about 3 minutes. It was completely unplanned, seemingly, but still kinda cool. He seemed really happy by it, and I thought it was cool that there was that level of interaction with the audience. He’s a pretty deep guy, and was the artist that I felt like I connected the most with, both musically and personally.
His Mischief was probably the most professional (in the traditional sense of the word), and the most well put together band. They seemed like they were used to playing shows, used to playing their set, and used to the whole ‘concert’ thing. They didn’t seem like they had a real stage presence, except when they were playing. I was not engaged at all by their stage presence, and I was not a big fan of their music. That said, they were good musicians, what they were playing I was not into at all.
Maybe there’s something I’m missing, maybe I’m too picky, or maybe I’m just too much of a hippie to be into the whole ’standard’ music thing. Kristoff Krane was, in my opinion, by far the best artist of the night.
Makes me wanna start writing lyrics again (for real this time).
