28-02-2012 Dry The River

Supports: Oh, Brave Wide Eyes; Venue: Tivoli de Helling, Utrecht (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

Dry The River sold out their show in Tivoli, Utrecht (Netherlands). Great to see, the band self tells that about a year ago when they also hit this city there were only about 50 people. A substantial grow as you can say.

Supports of the evening was the local band Oh, Brave Wide Eyes. They seem to aiming for such an exponential growth themselves considering their debut EP release “The Tascam Recordings”. Their music is quite mellow indie pop. Somehow a bit minimalistic but the trio makes their presence remarkable by the addition of a new instrument every song. Or maybe just hand a guitar to a band member to bring some variation in it.
The girl in this trio is the one that does not seem to stand out much at the first tracks. Not a stereotypical personality, but after a couple of songs you could see her coming more to the foreground of the music. Whenever she has an instrument in her hands it comes out better than just being singing. The other vocalist seems more consistent. Overall a nice performance of this local trio. They surely need to grow some but you can see they have the potential within them.

Dry The River is on the road with the release of their new album “Shallow Bed” coming up. New material that is still unknown to the majority of the people, but certainly in line with what the band did before. While thinking the band must have had a long reputation of releases you are quite wrong. This album is actually their debut full length as they only released EP’s and singles so far.

The strength behind this band is the three vocalists which create an interesting vocal landscape throughout the set. Each has its own region but when the three come together you get a truly wonderful picture. Also, the band likes to play around with tempo and tensions. The intensity may go deep and then suddenly shifts back towards a more mellow song. It works for the guys as the transitions between these are not too hard edged.
Subtle additions of violin, mandolin or viola may not always caught the attention of the audience visually, the man responsible for that stays a bit on the back of the stage but lets the sound of his instruments do the representation for him.

Sold-out Tivoli this evening and a debut album that had not even been released. The band shows they are ready for that major breakthrough right now as they showed tonight in this memorable show.