Tuesday night I saw a triple bill of Thank You Scientist, Moontooth, and The Tea Club at The Pyramid Scheme club in Grand Rapids MI.
The Tea Club Opened things up with a relatively short set of material from several of their albums. I had seen them at ProgDay back in 2011 and I think they have improved quite a bit since that time. Their material is what I would call traditional progressive rock. The band uses two lead vocalist / guitarists so there was plenty of nice vocal harmonization, and nice duel fretwork. The keyboards, drums and bass were all solid as well. Along with the original material they pulled out a very nice tribute to Greg Lake performing the closing section of “Epitaph”. Some of the younger members of the audience may not have known what it was, but I was moved by it. The band got mixed reviews from the people I was with, but I dug it.
Next up was Moontooth. I was totally unfamiliar with this band, and before the show someone compared them to Mastodon which is not too far off the mark. These guys were loud and heavy. Not sure that it was really progressive rock, but there were prog tendencies to their material. The guitarist almost looked like a young Ted Nugent with long hair, full beard, jumping up (and off) of his amp and shredding like a pro. The whole band was tight and very good at what they did.
The headliner Thank You Scientist did not disappoint. I have seen them 3 times, all at progressive rock festivals, and the vibe in a club environment was a bit different. The band played a good chunk of their new album along with several tracks from the previous one. These guys are pretty unique and don’t really sound like anyone else that I can think of. Along with the prog element, there is definitely a bit of a jam band flavor to what they do as well. Towards the end of the show the band did a mash up of cover tunes (reminded me of Umphry’s McGee) that was a lot of fun. With a band this size they were a bit cramped up on the smallish stage, but the whole set was a lot of fun.
The turnout seemed to be pretty good for a snowy Tuesday night as I would say at it’s peak the place was about a third to a half full (capacity is 400). This is a great little tour if it comes to your town with 3 quality bands. Advanced tickets were only $12 so certainly the concert bargain of the year for me.
Approximate set list based on memory and cheating from other shows on set list FM:
THE TEA CLUB:
UNKNOWN SONG
EPITATH (GREG LAKE TRIBUTE)
THE MAGNET
I SHALL CONSUME EVERYTHING
MOOTOOTH:
I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH THEIR STUFF SO DO NOT KNOW SONG TITLES
THANK YOU SCIENTIST:
THE SOMNAMBULIST
CAVERNS
FEED THE HORSES
KRANUS
MR. INVISIBLE
CONCRETE SWAN DRIVE
BLUE AUTOMATIC
RUBE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS
PSYCHPOMP
COVER SONG MASH UP (SIR DUKE, STAR WARS CANTINA BAND THEME, STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, THEME FROM JURASSIC PARK, THEME FROM THE X-FILES, AS DAYS GO BY, HEAD OVER HEELS)
ABSENTEE
MY FAMED DISAPPEARING ACT
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