Alyssa DeHayes
and-a-half ago and has already played South by Southwest, been featured in American Songwriter, and has in-store performances and a Sirius Radio session booked as part of this tour. Futurebirds were just south of San Francisco last week, where some of the guys got to indulge their love of skateboarding (side note: the bandmembers are also, oddly enough, big tennis fans, and compete against each other). But trouble and the expected little hardships have also followed the Futurebirds across the country, particularly in the Rockies. Drummer Payton Bradford recalls waking up in Dallas to find a busted radiator on the band’s tour van. In Aspen, the transmission died, and they missed shows in Salt Lake City and Boise as a result. When the band finally does show up to these long-distance gigs, there’s hardly any guarantee of a positive reception. Adding insult to injury, the band played to just a handful of people at that star-crossed Aspen show. Call it ego-checking. Bradford says, “Sometimes when you play at home, you get a false impression of what your reception [in other towns] is going to be.” To illustrate, Bradford tells a story about playing last year in Austin—a town synonymous with great shows— to a “crowd” of six people, which included four of the band’s friends, plus a heckler. The Futurebirds’ homecoming this week should be more like what they were used to before embarking on multi-state journeys. If nothing else, folks should show up simply for the fact that they have never before in history witnessed a show like the one Futurebirds have planned this weekend (though the
Futurebirds
3-D Rodeo Homecoming Extravaganza
T
he Futurebirds’ music has a road trip quality to it. And now the band has the road trip to back it up. The band—Brannen Miles, Daniel Womack, Thomas Johnson, Dennis Love, Carter King and Payton Bradford—are all Georgians by birth, Athenians by choice. They hail from Rome, Savannah and the Atlanta and Augusta areas. They have played an impressive number of local shows and small-tour gigs and are now nearing the end of a cross-country journey that has taken their sun-baked, rural rock clear from Philadelphia to the Pacific coast. Call them ambassadors of Southern charm. The Futurebirds play a variety of retro alt-country that recalls the best of breezy 1970s California, albeit without the touchy-feely nostalgia of Jackson Browne or his Eagles brethren. No, Futurebirds’ laid-back melodies and slapped-together vocal harmonies (plus plenty of reverb and slide guitars) are a little too weird for the soft-rock crowd. The band formed less than a year-
THE ULTIMATE
laser light show at Stone Mountain in Atlanta isn’t too bad of a comparison). Billed as the Futurebirds’ “3-D Rodeo,” this gig, which features Bananafish, Gift Horse and those inimitable, perennially underrated party-crashing funksters, Velveteen Pink, will show the bands playing to an audience of fresh faces in 3-D glasses. Imagine seeing your favorite local acts playing amid cacti and saloons, gunfights and guitars. Imagine This Is Spinal Tap meets The Outlaw Josey Wales meets latfh.com, all squished inside the 40 Watt Club—or, as the band’s press release reads (ironically?), it is “madness similar to the experience of watching Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show under the influence of Arsenio Hall.” The idea of playing a homecoming show like that, with the Futurebirds still relatively new at touring and recording and, well, being a band, is a bit of a shock for Bradford and his mates. “This couldn’t have been any less planned,” he says, talking on a cell phone while driving down the California coast. “We obviously have goals, but if you’d asked any of us months ago where we’d be now, none of us would’ve said we’d be here. Not because we thought we couldn’t be, but because we could not have imagined the pace of our ascent.” As for the band’s future outside of its home territory, Bradford is similarly optimistic but measured in his outlook: “Maybe it’s the Internet, [but] I feel like the regional identity of music now—with online access to blogs and downloads and bands—regional identity doesn’t necessarily lock bands into where they have success. That’s certainly been the case for us.” He adds, “As far as representing the South and Athens out here on the road, we’re very proud of our town and where we come from. It influences our music, and a lot of people recognize that.” Mark Sanders
WHO: Futurebirds, Velveteen Pink, Gift Horse, Bananafish WHERE: 40 Watt Club WHEN: Friday, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. HOW MUCH: $8
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TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR $10 for 21 and up • $15 for under 21 100 N. JACKSON ST. ATHENS, GA. 30601. T: 706.613.0504