Daphne Loves Derby, a conventional soft-rock quartet from Seattle, performed at The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles Wednesday night, proving to be pleasant background music, but not much else.
The band is headlining an acoustic tour with Ronnie Day, House of Fools and Meg & Dia, the night's most fun and unique act.
Daphne Loves Derby chose an acoustic tour to do something a little different.
"It's kind of like a fresh break from full band," lead guitarist Spencer Abbott said. "It gives us a chance to mix songs around … just adding kind of different flavors."
Throughout the set about half the crowd hung back from the stage and talked with their friends.
"It may feel like (audience members) are not as into it just because they're not moving around," Abbott said, "but they might even love it more. You can't really base it off of kids like really physically getting into it … because (an) acoustic show is just a little different."
The performance had an unusual dynamic as, lead vocalist Kenny Choi limited his interaction with the crowd to song introductions such as, "So here's another song."
Many of the songs blended together, all carrying slow rhythms and a soft tone. The two songs that stood out the most, with vocals similar to John Mayer, are on Daphne Loves Derby's upcoming album Good Night, Witness Light, scheduled for release on March 27.
The album's title is inspired by the poem "Beech" written by Choi's favorite poet, Robert Frost.
"The entire mood of the album kind of relates to the poem," Choi said.
The band played few new songs because this performance was only bassist David Sparks' sixth show as a part of the group. Member Jason Call recently left the band to prepare for his Mormon mission.
"We had to practice a lot just for the regular songs," Choi said. "We're just trying to nail down the set."
Although the current bandmates have been touring together for a short time, the band members are finding ways to get along and pass the time on long car rides.
"Two days ago we were driving, and we were bored, and we started eating gummy worms. And we were like, 'Man, this is boring! Let's have a contest, and see who can clap the longest,'" Choi said. "So we all started clapping for like ten minutes straight."
Another person who has adapted to tour life is Ronnie Day, an 18-year-old solo guitar performer who was one of Wednesday night's opening acts. Day began touring when he was 16, and was lucky enough to have a mother who supported his pursuit of a career in music. She accompanied him on tour when she had summers off from teaching.
His father tried to get him interested in playing trumpet when he was as young as three, but has told Day that he liked his older stuff before he "sold out" and signed with Sony.
Day, who said he writes about one song per day, is moving past the topic of love.
"I don't think there will be a time when people are sick of love songs," he said, "but I hope there's a time where people like me move past that. None of my new material really focuses on that kind of a theme."
He performed songs from his album, entitled The Album, which is lyrically based on the rise and fall of a past relationship. In between songs he stopped to explain part of the story to the audience, such as his song "Outside," which depicted what he would have wanted to tell Jamie, if he had been able to articulate it perfectly.
Although Day connected with the crowd in a way that made even 20-something aged men feel comfortable crooning along with him, his endearing junior-high-like lyrics sounded better on the album, where it didn't sound like he was trying too hard to convey emotion through his voice.
