Silversun Pickups, Irving, Tigers Can Bite You at the Troubadour

After surviving the fuzz storm of last nights Silversun Pickups show, I gathered myself and the camera for another round. Tigers Can Bite You was up first and played a solid set. The lead guitarist/vocalist(Dave) had a good setup of Boss pedals that included a Tremolo, Delay,Phaser, and Super Overdrive that produced a swirly, hypnotic guitar tone. The keyboardist also added some ethereal layers of sound washes to the songs. They had a good sound and tight songs that clocked in the 2-3 minute range. I also spotted some of the Silversun Pickups in the crowd checking out the set. I will check them out again if they play in the area. Irving was up next and had an impressive amount of gear setup. The bassist was rocking a Boss Giga Delay and an old DOD Course Fuzz pedal. They were excellent as well even though they ran into some sound problems due to the keyboards not working as well as the guitars having some problems. One thing I liked about Irving was they had different band members sing some of their songs. They had a Brit pop influenced sound with a dash of the fuzz. I picked up their latest CD on the way out to find out it was produced by Phil Ek. Unfortunately they don't have an upcoming shows up but I will be on the lookout. The Troubadour seemed to be at a greater capacity on Sunday when Irving hit the stage versus when Midnight Movies hit the stage on Saturday. The Pickups hit the stage next and proceeded to destroy everyone with their waves of fuzz and pummelling drums. They did hit a snag when Brian's guitar setup went out. He was having problems with his Ibanez Turbo distortion. He later switched it out and replaced it with the Big Muff Fuzz pedal. Another causalty was his Morley line selector went out and therefore could not switch between his 3 amps. So for the rest of the set he could only switch between clean and dirty tones.What he lacked in guitar tone he made up for in performance. He mentioned that his guitar was not working but the whisky was!!! After playing all of Carnavas, I didn't expect encore since they played a 10 minute version of "Waste It On". Fortunately, I was wrong and they came back and played a scorching rendition of "Comeback Kid" and "Creation Lake". They will be coming back as the opener for Snow Patrol and unfortunately won't get enough time to showcase all their dynamic tunes but I will try to check it out to see how they fare.