I walked into Neumos last Monday night and saw that the majority of the crowd was in costume, as expected on Halloween. What I wasn’t expecting was for a good amount of the crowd to also be sporting a bright red tote bag. I was a little confused, but continued on, trying to secure a good spot by the stage. Once I was in my spot, I noticed that another red bag was on the body next to me. I looked again and saw the bag read “I’M WET” in large, white letters. From that moment on, I began falling even more in love with Wet.
Starting off the night was Atlanta-based producer Demo Taped. Clad in a neon yellow chicken costume, this artist was ready to get down. The crowd however, was not. As Demo Taped rolled through song after song, the only tune that seemed to get the crowd somewhat excited at all was a remix of Wet’s song “It’s All in Vain.” Apparently all anyone wanted to do at Neumos Monday night was sit there and be sad listening to Wet, which would only become more apparent as the night progressed, but hey, I’ll stop foreshadowing. I thoroughly enjoyed Demo Taped despite the crowd’s large indifference, and would recommend checking him out on SoundCloud.
New York City 3-piece Wet came out promptly at 9 p.m., opening with “It’s All in Vain”. The crowd perked up a little for this, but fell back into their begrudging, I-will-stand-here-all-night-and-be-sad mood shortly after arrival. Wet played a couple more without a break, as intricate lighting design put different aspects of their show on display. Mainly playing with different ways of lighting lead singer Kelly Zutrau, the lights combined with the music was nearly angelic.
I spent a good amount of the night wondering what lead singer Kelly Zutrau was supposed to be dressed up as. Wearing a platinum blonde wig, brown corset, and white dress, my thoughts shifted from a weird Game of Thrones reference, to a German girl, to having absolutely no idea why I wasn’t getting it. She eventually gave in as she told the crowd that she normally dresses up as a clown for Halloween. Given this year’s clown epidemic, that was simply a major no. Luckily, she said she revealed she too had no idea what she was supposed to be! The rest of the band was easier: guitarist Marty Sulkow was an angel, and keys/bassist Joe Valle was a devil.
Zutrau then began to introduce the track, “The Middle,” a brand new one released just two weeks ago. She added that they are “already tired of the album” and wanted some new ones to play. The newer songs seemed to be given a lot more heart than the album tracks, as fan favorites “Don’t Wanna Be Your Girl” and “You’re the Best” fell flat in comparison to the newer singles.
The best part of the night was the encore, where Zutrau played two tracks off of Don’t You, their autoharp demo EP. Zutreau’s relaxing vocals and the ease of the autoharp created an alluring set of songs before eventually inviting the boys back on stage for the last song of the encore, “Weak.”
Wet’s hour long set was perfect for a Monday Halloween night, ending almost exactly at 10 p.m. We were free to either go out and continue to party or go home and hit the books (it was still midterms for some of us.). Wet showed their vulnerabilities, and gave the crowd exactly what they were asking for: melancholy music to stand around and be sad to.
ANNA KAPLAN | Sad Grrlz | KXSU Music Reporter