Live review: Sleepy Sun, Scout Niblett @ the Hi-Dive

By katherine peterson | March 29th, 2010 | No Comments »

San Francisco's Sleepy Sun turned the Hi-Dive stage into a psychedelic free-for-all last week. Photo from the band's MySpace profile.

While a snowstorm raged outside, Sleepy Sun’s frontlady Rachel Williams declared last Tuesday (March 23) that the band was there to “grind the night out,” and with that proclamation the San Francisco sextet launched into their set. This psychedelic free-for-all at the Hi-Dive began with three guitars trying hard to outwail each other, and Williams never stopped moving, dancing like she was responsible for coaxing the trance-inducing sounds out of her bandmates.

As residents of the Bay Area, Sleepy Sun appropriately delivered the same kind of heavy, acid-soaked stoner metal grooves as Blue Cheer. However, the gentle pace of some songs and a harmonica introduced an occasionally folky feeling. The band’s inescapable, mesmerizing melodies engulfed everyone in the room and confirmed their need to be experienced live.

Opening up for Sleepy Sun was English singer-songwriter Scout Niblett. I had already experienced the live assault of Sleepy Sun before and wondered how lone Scout Niblett would hold up against them. She maintained just fine though — her first slow, leaden, buzzing chords on her guitar that were way more brutal than anything that the term “singer-songwriter” suggests. Grunge rock seemed to hold more ground in her songs than folk music. Songs came from her newest album “The Calcination of Scout Niblett” and her last disc, “This Fool Can Die Now.”

About halfway through her set, Niblett was joined by a drummer, though she’d always had a delightfully awkward presence on stage, most songs ending with a forceful, two-handed tug to get her pants back up. Her words were deliberate and delivered in a brazen mess of screaming and defiance; she looked particularly pleased with herself whenever she delivered an especially loud snarl. Not all her songs were so aggressive though. “Kiss” in particular stood out with its sense of soaring melancholy. Throughout her set, Niblett’s quirky charm urged my love for her to grow into a whole new dimension.

Follow Reverb on Twitter! Here!

Katherine Peterson is a Denver-based writer, former host of Radio 1190′s “Local Shakedown” and regular contributor to Reverb.