The Helio Sequence
By Kimberly Rosenbauer
Tuesday. Jun 03, 6:44 PM
live at Bowery Ballroom (New York, NY) April 3rd, 2008.

Why do you go to concerts? I’m not being facetious, I’m being genuinely serious. Do you go because you love a band’s music so much that you just want to hear more? Do you go to have a visual while you’re listening? Do you go to socialize? Or do you go to experience something different from a group’s studio expression: a reinterpretation of the same music you’ve heard over and over on an album?

Personally, my answer wavers depending on the band. Especially when a particular band seems to offer more than just sing-song choruses and basic three-chord guitar riffs, as is the case with The Helio Sequence.

Therefore, such is the philosophical conundrum that is torturing me with their show at Bowery Ballroom on April 3rd. Comprised of only two band members, their sound is naturally going to be limited in a live setting. But so what? Often singers will perform solo without any back-up whatsoever. If his or her music and connection with the audience is strong enough, the performance will often be terrific without even a notice to the lack of other musicians on stage. However, instead of The Helio Sequence depending on their amazing music to carry them through, they chose to take the easy way out with pre-recorded electronic/synthesizer sounds.

At times it wasn’t as obvious. With drummer Benjamin Weikel playing as if he was center stage of the universe and with an abundance of energy, and guitarist/vocalist Brandon Summers’ breathy but beautiful voice shining through, the sound just came off as “bigger.” However, at other times, the pre-recordings would play for a good 10-15 seconds before the band joined in. This created a tone of incompetence and inexperience that does not at all depict the actual maturity of the band.

As a result, The Helio Sequence sounded – to a “t” – exactly like they do on their albums. No doubt that sound is fantastic and clearly draws in huge crowds (as it did at the Bowery), but is this really what the audience wants?

When Summers sang “Lately” off the group’s newest release, it had such an emotion and energy of its own, all we really needed to hear was him. Case in point, when he pulled out a harmonica to play with an older song, the crowd went wild. Although the band does have an “indie electronic” element to their music, it is not essential to their songs. Hearing live, real, and raw sounds, feeling the energy of the musicians come across through the music they’re playing and creating right in front of you: that’s what a live performance is all about.
www.theheliosequence.com

Kimberly Rosenbauer

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