Menomena at the Crescent Ballroom

There’s always something special about watching a band that continues to make good, as is the case with Menomena. After their release of “Moms,” earlier this year Justin Harris, and Danny Seim, founding members of Menomena, proved that even without the creative force of Brent Knopf, there’s still plenty left to write and sing about. Going from a small trio, Menomena has grown considerably, especially in the last few years to help accommodate their vast and deep sound that they create within their albums.

Having come through Phoenix a year and half earlier with the New Pornographers, there was definitely a noticeable difference in sound do the increased arsenal of musicians, and instruments, with everyone transitioning in between positions during their set. There wasn’t much interaction between band, and audience, at least non-notable, whether they were in a specific rhythm, (very possible,) or they were eager to play and get the workday over, moving from one song to the next was often immediate and without hesitation. It tends to be a toss-up when bands due this, at least for myself, sometimes it can feel as if an artist is (phoning in) a performance, and other times that’s just the speed of the night, in this instance, thankfully, it felt more as if it was the latter.

With a vast library to pull from, Menomena crafted a great set, bridging favorites from their previous albums while highlighting new material. Each time I get the chance to see them, its impressive to see how they can improve on already really solid performances, yet they do. With the customary complaint, of course I wish I could’ve hear either Evil Bee, or Wet N’ Rustling, (Brent Knopf creations,) as they’ve always had a near and dear connection to various periods of my life, but we can’t have it all, and if the only complaint after leaving a show is, “why didn’t I hear more of their awesome music!!!” then it couldn’t of been a bad show.

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