Copeland's farewell tour rolled into the Middle East Downstairs last night with Des Vail, Person L, and I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business that offered up an ambient selection of music with intermittent changes in between that suited the sold-out crowd there quite well and I was very pleased with the groups that performed.
The band to kick off the night was Des Vail. A five piece group hailing from Russellville, Arkansas performed an ambient style of music that is quite similar to Copeland's genre of music with its simple arrangements and laid-back instrumentation. The performance was rock solid, showing remarkable consistency all the way through to the final song of the set. The band has a sound that is similar to that of Death Cab For Cutie with its keyboard effects and vocal stylings that got the night off to a great start.
The next band to hit the stage was Person L. Person L hails from Philadelphia and it's the side project of The Starting Line frontman Kenny Vasoli, who recently released their second album, The Positives this past November. The set featured some songs from their latest album including the title track and "Loudmouth" which has a harder, rougher edge to it than some of the other songs heard prior, "Pleasure is All Mine" had more of a old school R&B vibe to it, which definitely got the crowd dancing along as well. "Sunshine" from their first album Initial brought the ambient feel back into the mix, and "Untitled" brought everything together with Kenny's vocals really shining through full force on this one. While it was a short set, it definitely provided for one of the highlights of the evening.
Next up is I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business. This band is the side project of The Early November frontman Ace Enders, who created the band to experiment with music that was different from the band that he was best known for, much like with what Kenny did with Person L. The set featured a variety of ambient leaning songs with uptempo breaks in between that definitely intrigued the crowd and really incited my curiosity about the band, who I was not aware of prior to the show and I didn't even recognize Ace who's music from The Early November I really admired. All around, a very solid set from them, who will be releasing their new album The World We Know on March 23.
And finally the headlining band Copeland finally took the stage to a thunderous applause of fans who were waiting for awhile to see Copeland in their final Boston area appearance ever as they announced this past fall that they would be disbanding after this tour after performing together as a group for 10 years. The band's set featured some classics, rarities, and tunes from their latest album, You Are My Sunshine. The band's sound is best described as a more user accessible version of Coldplay with songs that are rooted deep in an ambient and experimental sound that fans have really enjoyed over the years. After finishing up their set, the group returned to perform an encore of 2 songs before finishing up their performance for the night, amid a roar of cheers and applause from the crowd, who were disappointed that this would be their final appearance as a group in the Boston area. Overall, a great night from four very unique and different bands whose sound is quite similar but all have different goals and ambitions musically and reach fans from a different spectrum than that of the mainstream audience.
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