Our brilliant guest blogger, Britt Lundborg, attended yesterday’s gig and offers a full report! Nerd-rock septet The Apples In Stereo played Bowery Ballroom last night. They’re touring with Generationals, a sunny New Orleans foursome, to promote their seventh (!!) studio release. Front man, Robert Schneider, explained to the audience that their new album (Travellers In Space And Time) was the ostensible reason for the band’s silver space suits. I found them very becoming even without the excuse of a ‘contiguous brand identity’. [My marketing-nerd words, not his.] The crowd was populated by older folks (AKA over 35), guys in extravagant eyewear, and an unfortunate element who attempted multiple times to get a mosh pit going. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the enthusiasm! Being thrust back to my 1995 ‘Fun Trick Noisemaker’ loving self left me giddy too. Perhaps Schneider wasn’t too far off with the time-traveling capabilities of the suits. I will not lie. When they unleashed the high-bounce pop perfection of ‘Energy’, I too wanted to pogo. Their new stuff sounds shiny and tight – big golden 70-esque hooks melded with future forward electro blips. Someone seems to have found his Disco Stick at the back of the closet. And absolutely no grave faces here, The Apples smiled the entire time. Schneider wore an enormous pair of yellow wrap-around sunnies the entire set. He said we’d probably recognize them from their ‘Dance Floor’ video, but his keyboardist said they looked like something World Wide Wrestling Federation superstar Randy Savage would wear. And even though the vocoder is last year’s lame trick, I couldn’t help but love the keyboardist’s monster-robot voice slipping strange out of this world tremors into Apples’ upbeat tunes. Come early to hear the opener, Generationals, who also craft high-flying pop that sounds more naïve than it is. Their song, ‘When They Fight They Fight’, is just the sort of tune that a savvy music supervisor would use to anchor the opening sequence of a battle-of-the-sexes romantic comedy. See them before they’re licensed beyond all recognition & you only associate them with Katherine Heigl’s shit-eating grin.

View more photos & download an Apples tune AFTER THE JUMP…

MP3: The Apples In Stereo – What Happened Then