Hurricane Bells – Reluctant Twilight Supporters

Though the highlighted single from Twilight: New Moon was not exactly a draw, I was nonetheless excited to see Hurricane Bells take the stage at House of Blues on Tuesday in front of a sold out audience. Walking into a shoulder to shoulder crowd of recovering metal heads, my enthusiasm dipped slightly, as I feared that the mellow sounds of Hurricane Bells might cause a riot of emo-ic proportions. Thankfully, they just rude and yelled “Freebird!” on occasion.

Singer/songwriter Steve Schiltz, along with Ashen, his cohort for the show, took the stage, looking lost in the music apocalypse sea of instruments and decorations surrounding them. Their small acoustic set apparently not taking up nearly as much space as the next bands would require. The duo managed to tame most of the mishmash crowd with their quieter sound and their cover of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” got nearly the entire audience to shut the hell up for its entirety. The soft vocals and calming guitar were enough to make the audience listen closer, even through everyone already knows every word. An impressive feat, to be sure.

When we finally got to the Twilight song, “Monster,” Schiltz seemed less than thrilled to be playing it, grudgingly announcing the title and association at the opening. The few middle-aged Twilight fans seemed stoked, but the rest of us mimicked Schiltz’s reaction. And even without my undying hatred of Twilight, this was easily the biggest disappointment of an otherwise great set.

It pains me to see them plugging this movie…

As the show continued, more and more people joined on stage to play guitar, drums or shake random shaky things. With six, Hurricane Bells finally reached its peak and finished strong with “Freezing Rain,” off the 2009 release Tonight is the Ghost.

By the end, the previously agnostic crowd seemed fully engaged in the set and plenty of Hurricane Bells fans were born. Still, I’ll be curious to see their actual fanbase when they headline a show at Chicago’s Subterranean on May 14. Hopefully, the crowd will be less metal heavy, with fewer “Freebird!” yellers.

*By Jesy, who has decided “Freebird!” yellers should be bounced from shows immediately.

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