Friday night's concert at Starr Hill was like a Ben Folds Five show -- just without Ben Folds. And the five.
Darren Jessee, former drummer for the esteemed piano-rock trio that broke up in 2000, headlined the night's show with his new band, Hotel Lights.
Hotel Lights hit the stage with the crowd radiating anticipation, but if Ben Folds Five fans were expecting the same kind of music from their former drummer, they were mistaken.
In addition to his obvious knack for the drums, Darren Jessee provides the lead vocals and guitar for Hotel Lights with Chris Badger on the synths, piano and sound effects, Roger Gupton on bass and background vocals and Archer of Loaf Mark Price on drums.
Hotel Lights, who are "extremely under-hyped at the moment" according to Jessee, have been together for about eight months. "We just kind of got together to play some music and see how it would go," he says.
So what exactly is their music like? Jessee says, "I'm influenced by things I hear on the radio just in passing," but has an interest in Scottish rock ranging from Belle and Sebastian to The Reindeer Section.
Their goal is to come up with an original sound. "We're not really into big rock in the modern radio kind of format," Jessee says.
Needless to say, Hotel Lights does not have quite as large a fan base as did Ben Folds Five, and they're playing smaller venues. But Jessee doesn't mind.
"I enjoy them both, they're both very different," Jessee says of his experience with the two bands. "But this is an upstart band and I don't expect it to be that big at the moment, and I kind of enjoy playing in small places."
Starr Hill is the largest venue that the band has played so far.
Hotel Lights doesn't have any huge plans for fame on the horizon, but they are planning to make a record and have a winter tour with Nada Surf in the works. They are also working on a Web site that will be located at Hotellights.net.
Despite the fact that Hotel Lights is mysteriously unknown, the crowd went wild -- well, not wild, but they were pretty excited -- when the band made an entrance.
The music kept the attention of the audience, especially in the case of supporting band Fountainhead lead singer Piorkowski, who jumped up and got his groove on in the front of the room toward the beginning of the Lights' set. Someone hook this guy up with a dancing job -- the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' dancer should feel threatened.
Generally mellow, some songs featured the electric guitar while others were acoustic.
"You people are fools for the electric guitar!" Jessee told the audience when he switched over to acoustic.
Jessee's soothing voice put the audience in a relaxed mood, almost sounding a bit like Ben Kweller. The songs ranged from energetic to slow-paced to a happy medium between the two.
When the Hotel Lights did not return for an encore, the audience seemed very saddened -- but there was no reason for disappointment, as they had already been treated to a thrilling show by opener Fountainhead.
The band features the talents of U.Va. fourth-year Tom Daly (bass) and graduates Joe Piorkowski (vocals, guitar), Jack Carrig (guitar) and Carey Sargent (drums). The four have been playing together for about two years.
Their style comes from influences ranging from classic to alternative to jam rock.
"Collectively together, we play Fountainhead rock. Sham rock!" Piorkowski proclaims.
Fountainhead has been rocking out in the Charlottesville area with gigs at venues such Jaberwoke, the now-defunct Greenskeeper, Mellow Mushroom, a few other bars on the Corner and Saturday's Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar.
But perhaps most notably, Carrig says, "We've played frat houses and a bus driver party and a block party."
Last year, Fountainhead recorded a six-track, 30-minute long disc at "The Sound of Music" recording studio in Richmond that they are producing and selling themselves. They are working on recording four more songs.
As Daly is in his fourth year at the University and the other band members have graduated, they're trying not to think too much about the future.
"We're just going to let it happen as it comes now," Piorkowski says. "It's going well, we've been playing out more, and we're just going to take the energy that we have right now and see as far as we can get here. Things change, things happen and we're just going to take it as it comes."
Despite the normally chill demeanor of lead singer Piorkowski, he really broke it down once the band got on stage, throwing his entire body into the music.It was a very charismatic performance.
At one point he dedicated their song "Silence" to "the pessimistically optimistic person." Hmm. That's something to think about.
The songs were upbeat and unpredictable, suddenly changing tempo here and there without warning.
Lure, made up of former members of local band Wisher, came on after Fountainhead. Their instrumental makeup consisted of a guitar, bass, keyboard and drums.
Their sound was reminiscent of Radiohead, which some members of the audience seemed to notice. Regardless, the strong vocals and solid rock instrumentals made for good head bobbing and foot tapping music.
None of the bands that played Starr Hill Friday night have sold out any huge venues yet, but we can expect great things to come from all three.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
