KAV, Samuel Stewart, Useless Keys, The Union Line: Concert Review and Photos

Last Wednesday night was one of the few times we hopped on over to the Silverlake Lounge. Every so often, one of their main acts are enticing enough for us to be incredibly excited about. However this time, the night was packed with a great amount of talent from beginning to end.

Once the night kicked off with singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Samuel Stewart, who is now an LA resident by way of London, we had a feeling it’d be worth it to watch all the bands play under that well-known “Salvation” sign.

Samuel Stewart is no stranger to the music scene in general (his father is Eurythmic’s Dave Stewart and his mother is Shakespears Sister’s Siobhan Fahey), but his band’s sound in Los Angeles has allowed him to pave a new path. Although it doesn’t steer too far from pop, there is a definite fuse of pop, rock and folk going on that we found endearing.

Useless Keys was on second and for a band that has been creating some buzz around town, they didn’t crush any of our hopes. Considering the fact that their leading man had spent most of his youth playing punk/hardcore music, Michael Bauer has successfully gone into another genre where their rock sound involves a bit more spookiness and we’re not mad about that at all.

KAV finally took the stage as the headliner. With his British accent and sunglasses on the small stage, he managed to keep the energy going. Even with the unfortunate fact that his regular band members were not able to be there with him due to the Icelandic volcano, local musicians helped fill  his live set out with the his strong pop rock songs. It was apparent KAV’s sound was a bit too big for the venue that night, but that’s always a good characteristic for any musician to have.

We didn’t leave after the headliner because we were curious out Orange County’s The Union Line and our efforts to stay paid off. It was immediately easy to see why these guys are good friends with Los Angeles power act, Local Natives, as they are also heavy on vocals and percussion. However, it would be wrong to only point out similarities since The Union Line certainly have traits of their own that serve them well. With some songs, they could easily pull off anything Cold War Kids attempt but what’s most interesting is that they have an Americana sound that has a slight tropical touch. Tropical gets so blurry within the surf pop and noise acts these days, so it’s nice to know that it can be wedged into some clean rock as well.

Check some of our photos out from the night below!

Photography by Carl Pocket