The highlight of the night had to be Fleet Foxes — by a landslide. This band has received lots of praise on this site, though I admit I’d heard only snippets of their songs prior to the show. Somehow we lucked out and ended up at the front, albeit smashed against the wall next to the speakers, for this packed-house, much-talked-about, transfixing set at the intimate Sunset.
Fleet Foxes definitely deserved the talk. As they wend through the 40-minute set, frontman Robin Pecknold joked that they were all feeling a bit “under the weather,” as they’d played a late-night gig the evening before at Chop Suey. But hangovers or hoarseness be damned: Peckhold plowed through with a strong, haunting voice (I’d have never known him parched had a sweet audience member not fetched him a bottle of water during the set, for which he was profusely thankful). The band’s mesmerizing numbers, which mix jangly-pop with a tinge of acoustic folk, won me over. Especially lovely was “White Winter Hymnal.”
I suspect that if REVERB happens again next year (I hope! I hope!), Fleet Foxes won’t be fit into a 7pm start-time, but rather closing the night in a headlining time slot.
More Fleet Foxes photos from Kyle Johnson…
