lizzie

By: Emily Jensen

Lately I’ve been having recurring moments of feeling suddenly, conspicuously old. At the ripe old age of 23, things that were normal just two years ago have slowly morphed into signs of my fading youth. Do these denim cutoffs make me look washed up? Is it 10 o’clock already? Are these bran muffins made with wheat flour? Don’t you want to see my ID? IS THAT A GREY??While these grown-up realizations may be a little delusional based on the fact the I’m barely a quarter of the way into my potential lifespan, times when I become aware that I’m no longer a footloose late-teen can still be jarring. Take, for example, a local band showcase at Tipitina’s last week. Leaning against the bar nursing our drinks, my boyfriend and I watched Urban Outfitters-clad boys and girls flitting anxiously past one another as they awaited the opening act. Even though we came to scope out New Orleans’ own sultry-electro outfit Big History, we both felt creepily old and unintentionally skeezy when we realized that this was a Back to School show sponsored by WTUL. That explained the sea of ironic thrift-store threads and suspiciously fresh faces – but we’re here for the music, dammit! Or so we thought, until Chilldren lurched onto the stage.

Composed of four college-age individuals, three of them wielding mics and the fourth pumping dirty beats out of a Macbook Pro, Chilldren possessed a certain beer-soaked derangement that instantly produced one of those “I feel old” moments – but in this case, I felt relieved not to be a part of their age bracket. The three vocalists, a girl dressed in a cheerleader costume, another girl wearing something spandex-y, and a bespectacled fellow sporting glittery leggings and a Taz the Tasmanian Devil hoodie, shouted out The Boot in the second line of what could only be described as a Ke$ha-style rap. Now, it’s enough of a cultural phenomenon that Ke$ha herself gets stage time, but her imitators? What is the music world coming to? We decided to take a walk around Napoleon until the next act.

By the time we got back, Gold and The Rush had ridden in to save the night with their gorgeous, multi-layered rock riffs that echoed early Kings of Leon. While the vocals weren’t as strong as the instrumentals, their set was infinitely more enjoyable than Chilldren. Plus, none of them were wearing sparkly stretch-pants, and thus could be taken more seriously. At this point, the crowd of polished young adults, who had been skittishly wandering about the venue just hours earlier with doe-eyes and perfect coifs, was now a hyperbolic mass of inebriation. And somehow, my curmudgeon self felt more at home. Sure, we had a few years between us, but after a few drinks we’re all just a bunch of free-wheeling humans, looking for a groove to dance to.

And Big History sure gave us that. Out of all the local bands I’ve seen in New Orleans, I loved them best – lead singer Meg Roussell, who is a self-proclaimed history nerd and curator at the World War II Museum by day, has one of those effortlessly sexy voices that glides easily between eerie high notes and growling lows. Singer/songwriter Matt Glynn was masterful on the synthesizers, while the guitarist and bassist were both solid and indispensable. The whole band was super tight, in tune with each other, and delivered that which we were longing for: a set that was more about great music than great spectacle. And Meg, by the way, is older than me and way cooler. Gives this old fart something to look forward to!

Fall in love with Big History’s cover of The Weeknd’s Wicked Games here.