The Rosebuds don’t get detained from rocking Seattle

November 20, 2008, at Tractor Tavern

By Jonathan Shipley
Published: November 22nd, 2008 | 3:00pm

The Rosebuds took the stage with paintings of tractors and horses nearby, boots hanging from the rafters, small farm implements dangling about, and large, bare light bulbs illuminating the space between large tires suspended from the ceiling. They didn’t need any lights, though, because they lit up the place with their energy and indie-rock grooves, and it was felt the whole room through.

The set started with the rather sweet “Bluebird” off 2005’s Birds Make Good Neighbors (Merge). Vocalist-guitarist Ivan Howard sang, “If you’re lost / A chorus of our house we’ll sing / A tale so big it brings / That blue bird home to me / With you in his beak,” and then careened into the title track of their new album, before swinging back to the rousing, and perhaps the best song of the night, “Hold Hands and Fight.”

The band had a show the night before in Vancouver, B.C. where “we got detained [at the border] but we fucking made it,” said Howard. Made it they did. Once the Rosebuds got into their groove a few songs in, the audience responded kindly by singing and dancing along to tunes from their October release, Life Like (Merge) and the rest of their catalog.

Rightly so, the Rosebuds played sharply and tightly after getting out those initial kinks, and, from then on, seemed to have had a good time. “You guys are the coolest,” Howard stated. Howard, a tall North Carolinian who wore dark jeans and a jaunty cap (which made him look like a thin, musically gifted Vince Vaughn), rollicked on stage, kicking his feet up from time to time, hooting and shouting into the mic when the music blared. Keyboardist-vocalist Kelly Crisp was center stage; her black Converse shoes tapped to the beat, and she donned a black long-sleeve T-shirt under a white parka and pink fleece vest — the latter two which she shed quickly because it was damn hot. Bassist Giorgio Angelini was a stocky fellow who played resolutely and with a Jack Daniels at his feet thanks to a smitten fan. Drummer Logan Matheny was smoking good as well and kept the whole outfit firing.

Crisp hopped off the stage a couple of times to get swinging with the swooning, swaggering, and somewhat sweaty crowd. Among the tracks from the new record were “Nice Fox” and “Border Guards.” During “Bow in the Middle” also from their latest, they tried to get everyone to dance. “It’s going to be the next Macarena,” said Howard, but it didn’t work all that well. Fans were just too busy bumping one other and bobbing their heads, and that’s what happened the whole night through: Folks simply had fun, on stage and off.

For more photos from this set, visit Venus Zine's Flickr page.