SUMMER CAMP! with the Raveonettes and the Little Ones @ Little Radio June 10, 2007

Going to see bands perform in the daytime is always a sorta surreal experience. Especially when the last band has played and you walk out the door, and suddenly your eyes are being blinded from intense sunlight, even though it's now 6:30 in the evening. Ouch.

Today was the second installment of this summer's Summer Camp, organized by Little Radio. Boasting a water slide, free food and drinks, and FREE MUSIC, you can't go wrong with this much entertainment. Today was especially important to be there because I missed the Raveonettes Friday night. This seemed to be a recurring curse that was finally lifted as of today. Over the last two or so years, every time they came to play out here in LA I missed them for some reason. Plans would be made, money in hand, and then SOMETHING had to go wrong. Not this day, finally.

We really didn't have so much time to hang out there so we didn't pack bathing suits for the pool. Really, they had a pool there too. So standing outside drinking Dewars even under the tarp canopy in jeans was proving to be too hot for us. Inside was somewhat cooler, and we had wandered inside to catch the Little Ones (having missed the opening band Brothers & Sisters).

I couldn't for the life of me remember if I'd seen the Little Ones before. I recognized the name, and they sounded familiar, but.... Anyways, the best word I can think of to describe them was HAPPY. They were all smilies and whooping and yelling and they even had what looked like choreographed drumming and keyboard playing. That's always pretty neat. They also liked to play musical instruments(like musical chairs.. get it?), which for whatever reason is always entertaining to me. Like going to see Bedroom Walls where you never seem to know which one of them will be on what instrument. The Little Ones make me think I'm listening to a British band; there's something in the lead singer's voice and maybe the sunny poppy tunes that seem lined with slight sad notes. But they're not, they're from here.

I'm not sure if everyone knows that the Raveonettes acquired their name from the Buddy Holly song "Rave On"-they did by the way if you didn't know that. So, it was fun to hear them start up their set with "Everyday", one of my favorite Buddy Holly songs (one of which I also wanted to do a cover of, but dammit, theirs was pretty great). Today's show had them performing as just a duo; in fact, I believe their tour was called the Electric Duo tour. At least it was until the newer songs, then they had help on drums by Sandra Vu (from Midnight Movies- so pissed I missed them Friday) for the rest of the set. After "Chain Gang of Love", their second song into the set, something technical went wrong with an amp or along the lines of that nature and they had to fiddle with stuff for a bit. After a few they were back up and played "Love in a Trashcan". For just the two of them (at least for the first half) they sounded amazing to me and still kept their signature sound regardless of having only two instruments playing at a time. When the both of them sing, it's very hypnotic to me and also odd that I know there are two people singing, and yet it's hard to pull out the separate voices.

In another odd turn of events, I actually kept track of most of the songs they played, which included: Attack of the Ghost Riders, the Candy Song, My Tornado, Dead Sound and some new ones including (I believe) Lust and closing with Aly Walk With Me. One thing I must try and do when writing these things down is write legibly. Then I can be a bit more accurate with these things, sorry guys.