Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Nouvelle Vague at La Maison Francaise


So I returned tonight to the French Embassy in DC for yet another show- this time it was to see Nouvelle Vague play. Oddly enough, Camille, who I saw last time here, sang "Too Drunk to Fuck", "Making Plans for Nigel" and "The Guns of Brixton" on their first record.
Opening up was LA band, The Submarines. Their music was nice pop music using laptop and guitars. It reminded me some of Postal Service. Blake, the woman, had a beautiful voice. I wasn't sure if the crowd was really getting into them unfortunately, but I plan to check out their album. On reading about them, I found they have a Threadless contest going judged by the band- cool!
I had seen Nouvelle Vague when they toured in support of their last record at the World Cafe in Philly. You can see some pics here.
This time, the same singers were there, Melanie Pain and Phoebe Killdeer, but the band had changed a little. They still had Olivier Libaux on guitar and the same drummer, but instead of Marc Collin on keyboards, they added a bass player and accordionist Wendy McNeill.
This lineup changed was nice- it made their sound more acoustic and filled out. They did songs from both albums- my favorites from the new record were "Confusion", "Sweet and Tender Hooligan", and "Human Fly". They led the crowd in a singalong to "Too Drunk to Fuck" - and yet again at this venue, I was in contact with the band as Melanie Pain touched palms with me.
Oh, and one more thing, the accordionist was sooo hot! She looked great pumping that accordion as well as just dancing around when she wasn't playing. Yowsa! Licking pants had told me about her when he saw them play in Portland on this tour.

1 comment:

ulalume said...

Nice photos - we were much further back, so my photos were terrible. I was so looking forward to the show, having been a fan of NV since their first album and Blake Hazard as well. It was fantastic! Followed your dcist link here, btw.