The second performance ends, the stage screw comes on stage and prepares for the next band; the audience is shifting from one foot to the next, people are buying drinks and looking around, the lighting crew fiddles with the adjustments to make sure everything is right. People are getting excited that the band is coming on but to their disappointment not yet. The red lights take the stage; fog rises and covers the stage creating a sense of anticipation, excitement and wonder. The band finally enters and, one by one, we are greeted with the members of Iglu & Hartly.
Jarvis Anderson and Sam Martin, both on vocals and keyboard, bring something different to the stage. Actually, each member brings something to the stage, as they demonstrated during their show at the Troubador, in West Hollywood, on Nov. 20. Simon Katz, on guitar and one of the original three from Colorado to create Iglu & Hartly, made one interesting character on stage. At one point during the performance, if you were to look to the left of the stage, you would see Katz climbing one of the pillars, hanging there and playing his guitar. It was one sick sight. Michael Bucher, the Los Angeles native was ‘out there’ to say the least, with his blue, and I mean bright blue, pants and orange and blue and red striped tank top. He was all over the stage! If you were standing at the front of the mini mosh pit that the audience created then you could literally grab on to Bucher’s legs; he would be standing on the speakers and go crazy. Luis Rosiles, the Chicago drummer of the group did an amazing job. Yes, he wasn’t mobile like the rest of the members but his mad drum skills made up for that. If you stood at the left side of the stage, the right side of the club that would lead you upstairs, you could get one clear view of Rosiles as he went all out on his instrument of choice.
Sadly, I missed exactly what Anderson said/asked to the audience before the band went off on their next song, but as you looked around you could figure out the jist of it. Guys were picking up their girlfriends and setting them on their shoulders so that they could watch the show and it looked like a game of “Whack-a-Mole” as one girl would get down and another would go up. It was pretty funny and at the same time, really cute how the couples interacted with the band. The song Anderson dedicated to this moment was “Believe,” from their album And Then Boom. “Just do what we believe. Do it every way, do it every way. It’s you.”
The first song of the night was their most popular song “In This City.” The crowd went wild when the band started playing, and who could blame them? When you go to a show of a band you like and they play your favorite song, of course you’re going to go crazy. The show ended, and everyone was coming down from the high of the night’s events. And as all shows go, the audience didn’t move, but instead, started screaming ‘encore’ for the show to continue on for just a little bit longer and for the band to perform one more song. Lo and behold, Iglu & Hartly came back on stage for one more song, and they ended the night with “DayGlo” where everyone, and I mean everyone, started dancing.
The show was amazing, the band was incredible, the vibe of the room and audience was great and the night itself was a blast. Iglu & Hartly know how to put on a good show and make it so that everyone, even the ones who don’t know who they are, feel like they do and can associate with everyone else. It’s a kick when you can feel that way. At other shows, if you don’t know the band and are there anyways, people sometimes look at you funny and think “What the hell is that person doing here? They don’t even know___!” Not with I & H. If they ever have another show here in Los Angeles, you can guarantee that I will be there, and you better too!
