[Photo courtesy of Real Estate’s official Facebook]
Real Estate played Seattle’s Showbox on Wednesday, April 19th, and the entire time, I kept trying to process why it started to rain on my way to the venue when the rest of the day was perfectly fine, and why my throat felt like I had swallowed razors.
Seattle-based band iji (ee-hee) warmed up the crowd with dreamy, synthetic music. iji’s recent album, Bubbles, was based off of a collective dream journal the band created while touring in 2015. The influence of the dream journal is embodied in each of the album’s tracks, all very airy and light in sound sound to make listeners feel like they’re floating on clouds. The performance was something fresh, and unlike anything I’d ever listened to before.
Real Estate opened their set with a performance of their most popular song, “Darling,” off their new album, In Mind. As soon as the music began, nothing mattered. I wasn’t getting sick, and the sun was shining bright.
Real Estate carried a very diverse show in terms of highlighting their entire catalog, with a nice mix of older tracks and new ones off of their new release. The band’s managed to sneak in songs off of their previous releases, including “Fake Blues,” all within the first 15 minutes of their set.
With that being said, there wasn’t much of a consistency with the band’s sound. There was a time during the beginning of their track, “Saturday,” where it sounded much differently from the recorded album track. The song started with psychedelic undertones, similar to how I would imagine Tame Impala or Temples would sound live. “Saturday” is my favorite track off of In Mind, so hearing it being played differently, in comparison to what I had been listening to on the album, was a bit shocking, but it was overall done very well. I was in awe, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it, too, so no harm done.
Real Estate’s musical talent and lyricism has always blown my mind, and still continues to do so. Hearing the hard work of a band that has been together for eight years and has gone through life moments together, such as marriages and raising kids, was incredible to see live. The men of Real Estate still present themselves as the young 20-something-year-olds they were when they started.
The band ended the night with an older song, “The Bend,” but the crowd still wanted more, so they returned for an encore, capping off a successful Seattle show with their tracks, “All the Same” and “It’s Real,” from their 2011 record, Days. The encore left the crowd with a reiteration that although the band has been together for a while now, and are continually releasing new albums, they’ll always give their fans what they want to hear.
Real Estate and iji delivered a great night of music, despite those razors in my throat quickly developing into an unfortunate sickness. There are some bands that can manage to ever so slightly change their sound and continually keep the attention of their listeners, all while attracting new ones, too. Real Estate is an example of one of those bands.
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CELENE KOLLER | Sick | KXSU Music Reporter