By now, I’d imagine most Seattleites reading this site are familiar with Lemolo. And if not, then you’ve got a great treat to discover. The slow-rising, dream pop of Meagan Grandall and Kendra Cox forged a name. Before even releasing an LP, they managed to tour with the Head & the Heart, play Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival and join Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge last Autumn. Just a few weeks back, they dropped their first full-length The Kaleidoscope with a sold-out show at the Columbia City Theater (and they added another one, fyi). Anyhow, rather than me rambling on here, we’re sharing a review of their Capitol Hill Block Party 2012 performance from Meagan’s former classmate and stagemate, Andrew Fontana. PS: Check out their single from The Kaleidoscope, “On Again, Off Again“.

By: Andrew Fontana

The first time I heard Meagan Grandall, she sang alone on a small 1ft stage at a Seattle University open-mic, with her acoustic guitar, song about teenage love, and her captivating voice that still infuses and guides the music of she now creates with the band, Lemolo.

As the sun set on Saturday evening, over a crowd relieved this summer day had felt like a summer day, Meagan leaned down onto one knee to tune her guitar.  Visible past the stage and the chain link fence, sat the edge of Seattle University’s campus, where I first heard the songs of Meagan, and later Lemolo.  You could tell this was one was sweet, a sort of circle coming full; Lemolo back on Capital Hill, playing in the backyard of a neighborhood that has watched come into their own.

Lemolo doesn’t hurry and it took time to find the thread of their opening song.  The temptation with any performance, especially live, is to hook the audience from the start, shock some ear drums, and ask for forgiveness later.  As a listener it is easy to want and even expect this kind of wham-bang treatment.  I had to close my eyes, let the party around me fade a little, and accept the terms.  It wasn’t long before I felt the energy of the distorted guitar-strums that were in no hurry, and drum hits that were not wasted.  By the time their first song peaked and faded into the hoots and hollers from the sizeable crowd that had gathered to watch them on the Vera Stage, I was theirs.

Lemolo’s performance shows there are other ways to bring in an audience, that sometimes speaking softly makes a person lean in, listen more closely.  It’s not that these two are afraid of volume; they’re just careful noise practitioners.  They prepare themselves and the listener for the coming waves.

“Taking my time, after every line” Meagan sings out during Letters, and Kendra Cox’s cymbals begin exploding around her.

Their live performance stayed true to they sound they’ve committed to in the studio; a paced pairing of guitar, piano and synth-distortion, with spare and deliberate drumming.  The two-piece band plays like three, with Meagan’s vocals adding a third presence, crossing effortlessly between word and sound, clear pronunciations and airy falsettos.  As Whale Song faded, the crowd could be heard singing the outro “She sees the world the way she wants, the way she wants…”

For close to an hour, as the sun drained and the sky turned deep blue overhead, we saw the world the way Lemolo wants.

The two band-mates hail from Poulsbo, a town on Washington’s Olympic peninsula.  Perhaps it’s too easy and said to often that their music sounds like where they’re from, but I had slipped out onto blue-gray Puget Sound almost without realizing.  The next time I opened my eyes I was following highbeams down a narrow two-lane forest road, shadowed in green, windows down to the rushing air.  Whale-watching? Naturally.

The strength of Lemolo seems to lie in their trust of the music they’re creating.  The sound of heartbreak, the sound of sunbreaks?  Lemolo will show you how these sound to their ears.  This trust was evident at Block Party performance, as Meagan and Kendra looked to each other as delved deeper into the world they were exploring.

As an audience you want to feel that you contributing to the performance, but really the hope is to be their when the performers forget they’re not alone.  Lemolo got lost Saturday night and took us with them.  I look forward to future adventures.

_____
Photos by Jim Bennett