all photos courtesy of mary rehak

it’s not every day that houston gets a high profile, across-the-board-approved indie stalwart to come and rock through our city, so upon hearing that both beach house and local natives would be rolling through houston in a two-day time span, the collective populus that gives a shit about this kind of stuff began to clamor with excitement. naturally, the bears procrastinated a few minutes too long and had to pass on beach house due to a sell out. that didn’t stop us from lizzing from sheer glee and catching local natives, a band we’ve so dearly cared about since the first incarnation of this here blog.

we still have SXSW footage coming your way in the next couple days via our good buddy josh cornejo, so keep a look out.

hit the jump for the rest of the recap.

-grizzly


all photos courtesy of mary rehak

it isn’t a weworemasks show on a saturday night unless it’s filled with a lot of boozy love between each other and the rest of our friend circle. and the LAST time we saw local natives was at the racheal ray showcase, which literally put us in the exact same scenario. they definitely left us wanting more after a six-song set, so it was safe to say that we were excited to see them knock out a bulk of this year’s finest release thus far (opinion!), gorilla manor.

all photos courtesy of mary rehak

what began as curiosity for opening act suckers, turned into a complete disregard of their set, strictly due to reasons of discomfort inside mangos, where the house temperature was in the vicinity of 200 bodies in a 150-body space after hours of drinking. twas a delightful evening in the h, so we decided to congregate in the outer regions of the venue, where we were treated to the sounds of suckers at bay, while we enjoyed patio furniture and pollen residue from allergy season. for what it was worth, we did manage to catch self-titled’s “easy chairs” and the band closing out their set with “it gets your body movin,” which is set to drop with wild smile on june 8th.

all photos courtesy of mary rehak

as the natives of los angeles (went there) took the stage, there was a mild heat wave that struck, as everyone stumbled to get a good spot for the show. turns out, there was about four good spots in the entire venue unless you were 6’4”. as our entire flock slowly disseminated to various spots across mangos, we finally stood on a small step, giving us that extra three inches to hover over everyone else. as previously mentioned, we were more than impressed with their racheal ray set at sxsw, which was a mere warm-up to the set the band was able to play at mangos, as they played through each song with due precision and complete attention to every harmony that is on the album.

all photos courtesy of mary rehak

as taylor rice, kelcey ayer and ryan hahn spent the entire 50+ minute set using each other’s fumes and melodies, bassist andy ham and drummer matt frasier kept the rhythm on point all night. as far as the setlist necessities go, it’s safe to say that everyone in attendance heard their favorite song off the record, as all twelve songs were played. that’s not to say it wasn’t expected, but who doesn’t like met expectations? to put the lid on this recap, i’ll end by saying that there are a slew of dates left on this tour (all the way leading up to bonnaroo on 6/10, if you’re curious), and i would highly regret it if i missed the chance to see this band play gorilla manor in its entirety for average cost of 10 bucks.

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[SETLIST]

world news
warning sign
wide eyes
cards and quarters
shape shifter
stranger things
camera talk
cubism dream
sticky thread
airplanes
who knows, who cares
sun hands