Our friend Amy was in-town visiting over the weekend. She was looking for a good weekend to fly out and when she saw that the Local Natives were playing on a Friday night in Denver, she decided that was the weekend. She had recently discovered this band at South by Southwest and admitted to being slightly addicted. Apparently she isn’t the only one, as Friday nights show at the Larimer Lounge was sold out at least a week before the event. We arrived at the venue just before the opening band was scheduled to start playing, grabbed a couple of drinks and headed out back to the patio area. The inside area by the stage was already hot, but the temperature at that time would soon pale in comparison to the heat during the bands’ performances.

The opening band, Suckers, got started a little later than expected, likely due to the largely tardy audience. Immediately our ears were met with deafening bass tones, while the band took the stage. Their lead singer arrived onstage with face painted in what appeared to be glittery puff-paint and draped with some sort of makeshift cape. It was a very odd start to an even odder performance. The volume inside was definitely too loud for the still arriving crowd. I will admit that the music wasn’t quite my style, and I began questioning what I had gotten into. I thought Amy knew my musical tastes nearly as well as I did, and most of our favorite artists overlap pretty well. I was quickly reassured, when we all agreed that we should move back outside and rest our ears over another drink.

Once the stage was changed over for the Local Natives, and the room was sufficiently packed to capacity, we moved back inside and found spots on the side of the stage. The five-piece band took the stage after a few minutes and jumped right into songs from their recent release, Gorilla Manor. I was quickly impressed by their vocal harmonies and musicianship. It’s hard to say that one of the musicians is the lead singer or frontman, as they are all well accomplished at their various instruments and possess great singing ability. However, I was most impressed by Kelcey Ayer, who seemed to sing lead vocals on most songs, as well as playing keyboards and percussion. He not only played both instruments, he played them at the same time, with one hand playing keys and the other beating on a drum or cymbal. It was very impressive, as was the rest of the band and their performance. This was a rare occurence where I knew very little about a band before seeing them and instantly became a fan.

Below you can take a listen to their latest and debut release. It is a bit different from their live show, and you may not be able to fully appreciate it until seeing them live, but give it a listen and let us know what you think.