The Loyal Divide and their Friends: Loyal to Persistant Awesomeness

by Sean Brna

Last Friday, August 8th, Fanfound.com presented a three-band performance at the storied Kinetic Playground in Uptown Chicago, a small to mid-sized venue located directly across the street from the Aragon Theater. The weather was wonderful & the music lasted late into the night, it was indeed a great Chicago weekend evening. The music began around 9:30pm and listeners were treated to shows from three solid local bands: Bully In The Hallway, Verona Red and The Loyal Divide.

Bully in the Hallway went on shortly after half past nine, and while the crowd was still trickling in once their aggressive punk-rock chords rung out there was a noticeable increase in the amount of street traffic that decided to stop in for some tunes. If you like high energy and some distortion with strong backbeats this band could be for you. Lead singer Mathé Simon, whose only focus is to belt out the lyrics and be his own hype man on stage, provided quite the start to the show with his high-octane style of singing. The band gelled well musically onstage, which was impressive considering that their bassist was not playing due to a broken hand. However, the guitarists did a good job of covering this fact up the best he could. Matteo Jannotta, the drummer, was the most sound in his musical fundamentals, providing the percussion (without a bassist mind you) in perfect time with a certain swing to it that made the music significantly danceable even though their genre doesn’t always lend itself to that in a live and loud setting. There was room for improvement, however, as the lyrics were at times sung with such enthusiasm that the mics would distort and clip. There also could have been more sonic space for each instrument, as there was more “blurring” of the guitars compared to their recorded material. However, this could be a result of a band not only being the one to go on first but having to play without their bassist. All in all Bully in the Hallway provided a very entertaining show that worked wonderfully to vigorously kick start the evening.

Verona Red was the second act on the night and took the stage around 11:15pm. Verona switched the vibe within the Kinetic Playground from the more aggressive rock provided by Bully In The Hallway into a more dynamic and party’ish (for lack of a better word) show. Verona is a 4-piece band with the lead signer occasionally giving up his guitar to sit down at the piano. As the crowd grew slowly Verona Red was happy to oblige them with quite danceable grooves. They were also happy to provide the occasional creative cover in-between their originals, just to make sure the crowd was having fun while they frequented the bar. Verona provided lyrics that were in key and catchy, yet at times they did seem over stylized. Maybe the best performance was their last number, “Hesitations and Clichés”, in which a catchy piano piece was combined with an energetic drum line and showed the best of what they have to offer.

The last band, and one of the best young bands this author has seen in recent years, was The Loyal Divide. This band, which formed while the artists were attending Miami of Ohio, has been working the Chicago area for just a couple years. However, one would never guess this after seeing them play just one song. The band is a five piece (Siddharth Chittajallu, Adam L. Johnson, Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Notowidigdo, Christopher Sadek) with each member being able to apparently play numerous instruments. They are quick to use samplers and synthesizers, yet they do not overkill their music with artificiality due to their well balances use of acoustic guitar, percussion, trumpet and great vocals. From the onset of their first song the tightness of the band was readily apparent to everyone in the venue. Before the first number was over the bar was relatively empty, as everyone had moved to get close to the stage and see who exactly was creating the awesome sounds all were hearing. And even though they did not come on until after midnight their sound drew in more people off the street. The artists appeared to have live-performance in their blood as they moved and acted as one. They were able to give each instrument their own sonic-space yet have a lot going on. Also, there was a pleasant lack of ego to their music as well; no single artist in the band was in control, they played as servants to their own music. To attempt to communicate the type of music The Loyal Divide plays one could say they are “like Radiohead,” because of their use of samples and electronic sounds combined with a mellow psychedelic-rock feel. Yet this comparison isn’t totally fair as they do have their own unique sound and sonic philosophy. Two songs this author felt were worth noting are ‘Ancestor’ and ‘Tulip’ which are now being played often after my purchase of their self-titled EP (I rarely by CDs at concerts but this had to be done). Like all good bands their recorded material is great, but does not compare to seeing them live, something I suggest to all reading this.

In the end it was a kick ass Friday night of local bands at The Kinetic Playground. Fanfound.com threw a great show, only $9 for nearly 4 hours of live music! They also gave away tickets to the Chicago Blues & Blue Grass festival in November and to future Fanfound events. You can catch the next Fanfound.com concert on August 29th, again at the Kinetic Playground. Bully In the Hallway can be seen next at Shubas on September 11th. Verona Red can be seen again at Kinetic Playground august 29th. The Loyal Divide can be seen August 23rd at the Red Line Tap and on September 5th at Beat Kitchen.