Show review: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at afterHours, Northeastern University – 4/10

Northeastern brings something for the hipster crowd to Springfest 2012 with an afterHours show featuring shoegaze-leaning indie rockers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, with support from Bear Hands.

I first encountered Bear Hands as an opening act for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at Pawtucket, RI’s The Met a few years ago. The (still pretty amusing) pun in their name was the only thing that stuck with me from that particular set. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised by the band’s performance on Tuesday night. Their sound lingers in the zone of guitar-driven indie pop with electronic flourishes, but with a slightly unorthodox rhythmic spin. Drummer TJ Orscher and bassist Val Loper up the complexity of the typical pop rhythm section to create uniquely textured backdrops for guitarists Dylan Rau and Ted Feldman. Rau introduced several songs as new ones throughout the group’s set, so they’re likely due for a record sometime soon. With the right exposure, I could easily see this band moving from opener to headliner in the very near future.

The beginning of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s set reinforced the notion that it’s surely a challenge to draw the same energy as a seven or eight hundred person club show from a crowd that’s probably fifteen percent of that size. It’s especially hard at a venue like afterHours, with a shaky-at-best PA system and a Starbucks roughly a hundred feet from the stage. I’ve gotta hand it to Pains frontman Kip Berman though, because he gave it his all. His energy and relentlessly upbeat attitude held the show together despite an unenthusiastic crowd and a fair share of sound issues. The vocals were difficult to hear at times, and poor keyboardist Peggy Wang was completely inaudible throughout the performance. Still, the band delivered a great set deserving of a better setting and a bigger crowd.

The Pains’ self-titled debut record is thirty five minutes of pure noise-pop bliss, and 2011’s followup Belong expanded on their sound in all the right ways without losing what made them great in the first place. These are the kind of songs that demand to be played loud and sung along to even louder. The band’s set on Tuesday wisely drew from both records in equal measure, and included ‘Come Saturday,’ ‘Young Adult Friction,’ ‘Belong,’ ‘Heart in Your Heartbreak’ and just about every other song one would hope for. The beauty of having a short discography is the ability to play through nearly all of it in the span of an hour-long set.

Berman and Wang were accompanied by Alex Naidus on bass, Kurt Feldman on drums and Connor Hanwick on guitar. The rest of the band never quite matched Berman’s energetic stage presence, but seemed to be enjoying themselves nonetheless. The songs took on that ideal live performance feel where the edges are just a bit rougher, the guitars noisier and the choruses bigger. Divorced from the different but equally distinct production styles of their two records, the songs stood firm on their own. The Pains are far from a band of ’90s-aping style over substance, which becomes evident as the strength of their songwriting shines through in a live setting.

Berman’s solo take on ‘Contender’ opened the pseudo-encore (everyone else left the stage, and he told us they’d be eschewing the standard dramatic pause of a proper encore break). Seeing the song stripped back to only the man and his guitar was a uniquely intimate moment in an otherwise noisy, full-band show. It was a bit like watching one of John Darnielle’s always-stellar solo sections during a Mountain Goats set.

I had an opportunity to chat with Berman following the show, and he was every bit as friendly as his stage presence would suggest. He also knows his indie rock. Fun fact: we share a favorite Yo La Tengo record (Painful, of course).

afterHours continues to not exactly work as a live music venue should, but the Pains put on a lovely show in spite of that. Hell, the strength of this show nearly makes up for the exquisitely poor judgment exhibited in booking Nelly as our official Springfest headliner.

Bear Hands:

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: