In the 21st century its trending that popular artists are discovered, and increasingly gain popularity, through online platforms such as Soundcloud, Youtube, and others. But before the beauty of the internet, many musicians were only discovered through playing local bars or small venues in their home town. For my live concert experience, I wanted to explore this idea of local artists playing at their local venues and decided to go bar hopping while visiting my hometown of Dallas, TX. It was here I discovered the band Do We All Agree.
Anyone familiar with the Dallas area knows of Deep Ellum as downtown’s go to place for art, music, and beer. So, with a friend in tow I headed there with hopes of hearing some great new music from some local artists. Being a fan of all things rock I went to a bar consistent for always having some sort of rock or metal artists playing known as The Liquid Lounge. It was here I heard the young but talented alternative rock band named Do We All Agree.
My first observations were about the venue itself. The Liquid Lounge is like the smaller little sister of The Curtain Club and operates out of the same building as the big club. The Liquid Lounge has a few features besides just music and beer which include an upstairs balcony with a pool table and a handful of classic arcade games, a floor level with the typical plethora of booths and tables to gather around, and a small patio is situated just outside the club’s backdoor where concert goers can smoke and chat. Overall though, the venue is tiny compared to most which works to and against its benefit. For pros, the small size creates an intimate venue setting where the audience is right there in front of the band and it all feels very interactive. On the other hand, because of the little room its easy to get overwhelmed by the loudness and hard to get away from the music to have any sort of conversation with your companions as there’s really no way to get away from the loudspeakers.
After familiarizing myself with the space some, I quickly focused my attention to the band’s performance. Do We All Agree is a young local band based in Dallas, TX comprised of four members, a lead singer/guitarist, lead guitarist, drummer, and bassist. Their set began with the original track Red October followed by several more original tracks all capped off by the high energy and riff heavy song Friendly Fire. In every song you could hear the band’s influence from artists such as The Neighbourhood, Cage the Elephant, Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Green Day. Their music consisted of a unique formula with heavier bridges influenced by alternative artists of old such as Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers combined with more relaxed and laid back choruses influenced by more recent alternative artists such as the Neighbourhood and the Arctic Monkeys. A formula that made for a roller coaster of time by hyping you up to then soothe you with a chorus and do it all over again. It was both a unique sound by combining to different styles but also familiar with noticeable influenced and nodes to other well-known alternative rock artists.
Overall, I thought this was a unique and enjoyable performance. The experience of going to a live performance with no knowledge or expectations of the artist playing is unique in itself. It creates an experience with no bars to exceed or fall short of and instead just allows the listener to go and discover music and have that unique feeling of liking an artist’s music for the first time. There’s no prior knowledge of the band from online or expectation of sound, just the band, instruments, and raw live sound.
Jacob's ASEM Music Blog 