Foxygen- Turner Hall Ballroom, 7/28/13

The term "buzz band" seems to be most often associated these days with the California psychedelic-alternative rock duo of Jonathan Rado and Sam France, better known as Foxygen.  After all, they were named a "Best New Music" artist on Pitchfork, and had a great write up in Rolling Stone.  Their latest release, We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic is a very good album, and will most likely end up on several critics' best of the year lists, including my own.

A very good album, however, does not necessarily make an exceptional live act.   In the case with Foxygen, they have earned a reputation, in a very short amount of time, for their erratic stage presence, inner-band fighting and bickering while performing.  If this is all a big act, it's working well, as a simple Google search of "Foxygen" will draw you to a plethora of articles and blogs about the band and its inner workings (or lack thereof) without much mention of its music itself. In fact, one musician, Elizabeth Fey, who sings on the band's most played track, "San Francisco," is no longer on stage with Foxygen, after a chaotic performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago earlier this month.   I guess a little drama isn't a bad thing if you're a young band getting a ton of press these days.

For this evening's show, Foxygen did not fight on stage or bicker with each other.  In fact, at the end of the show, Jonathan Rado declared that this was "the best show the band has played."  That made me feel good as a fan, but also made me wonder, if this was their best, what was their worst?  There was little interplay among the two chief musicians, besides some insipid banter between Sam France and the near-capacity audience on a Sunday evening focusing on talking about Disney songs and topics in between songs.  For folks in the way front who were conversing with the musicians, this could have been kind of cute, but for the rest of us it seemed a little awkward and a lot bizarre.

From my point of view, Foxygen is a very young and talented band that needs to figure out a stage niche of their own without falling into rock 'n roll stereotypes and cliches.  At the heart of this band are two musicians who are solid songwriters.  Their modern take on the laid back, jammy nature of late '60's-early '70's psychedelic rock peaked my interest as a listener.  Lead vocalist, Sam France channels the spirit of Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop when he performs.  His stage antics go from hitting himself with the microphone, wrapping his microphone stand around his neck,  holding the mic stand backwards, standing on the monitors, climbing on the speaker stack and jumping down, and tripping several times on stage.  The out-of-control rocker image has been done in the past, and more convincingly, than Page's presence.  With that said, he did entertain visually.  The arrangements of the tunes were a bit on the sloppy side, but fit the band well.  In fact, one of the touring musicians often put his guitar down in lieu of a tambourine, channeling Joel Gion of the Brian Jonestown Massacre.  He was quite entertaining and held my attention well.

The jury is still out on Foxygen, as they are a very young band. Like many younger acts who I've seen this year, there is a lot of potential and room for growth.   If Foxygen is able to focus their creativity and energy, they have the potential to be a solid throw-back psychedelic rock act.  If not, their career may be much shorter lived.


Grade: B-

All photos courtesy of Gigshots by Stephen Bloch.