Surfer Blood Played The Saint with Fort Lean and Wake Up, 2/27/14 (PHOTOS)

Close to Home

It seems kind of late in the year for it to be this cold. I bundled up last night, though, and headed out to The Saint in Asbury Park to catch Surfer Blood. Surfer Blood have two solid albums and an EP under their belt, and Astro Coast was a standout for me in 2010. I'll admit, though, that the weather factored into my decision to renounce my Stephen Malkmus tickets and to stay close to home rather than make the drive into Brooklyn. Joining Surfer Blood on the bill were fellow Floridians Wake Up and Brooklyn's Fort Lean.

The music started with Lake Worth, Florida's Wake Up. The quartet provided me with a bit of my Malkmus fix for the evening, their sound heavily rooted in classic indie rock like Pavement, Modest Mouse, or Built to Spill. They impressed me, and it's nice to see them getting some exposure by touring with the much more well-known Surfer Blood in advance of the release of their debut EP.

Greenpoint's Fort Lean followed. The Saint was really starting to fill up at this point, and the band's combination of garage rock and power pop got a nice response from the crowd. Frontman Keenan Mitchell mentioned that they'd been touring some of the "hippie hinterlands" for the last week or so and that, despite the cold, it was nice to be "back in the neighborhood. It's nice to see some leather jackets again." 

Despite being based about 1200 miles up the Atlantic Coast from Surfer Blood, Fort Lean revealed a philosophical and aesthetic connection to the headliner with songs like "Beach Holiday" and "Sunsick."

The Saint felt pretty packed as Surfer Blood took the stage. Frontman John Paul Pitts looked young and unassuming in his button-down shirt, but he and the rest of the band turned in an energetic set that pulled from all of the band's recorded material. The biggest responses, of course, came for hits "Swim," "Floating Vibes," "Demon Dance," and "Weird Shapes." During "Floating Vibes," Pitts put his guitar aside and made his way down into the crowd, eventually emerging atop The Saint's bar somewhere between the paper lanterns and the purple "Sean Ono Lennon" guitar. I think he got himself a beer while he was up there.

After closing the main set with "Catholic Pagans," the band climbed down from the stage and -- rather than heading out to the cold street via the door at the rear -- just kind of waited alongside for a bit until they jumped back up for a two-song encore. It had me thinking of the end of the Nicole Atkins concert, when she and the band stepped out into a snowstorm before the encore. When they came back, Atkins commented on what a bad idea that was. The boys from Florida didn't make the same mistake.

At the end of the show, Pitts was back in the crowd, this time letting them strum his guitar and take pictures. He left his Stratocaster at the edge of the stage as the final song ended, audience-members fiddling with the knobs and plucking the strings.

I got to see three, really good out of town bands last night -- two of which, I'd never heard before. I didn't have to go out of town to do it, and I was home by 12:30. Gave me kind of a warm feeling inside.