Living & Arts

‘Saturday’ looks good in Olde Club

In print | March 6, 2008

I really hope that when Madalyn Baldanzi ’08 was in the process of scheduling which day to book the band Saturday Looks Good To Me for Olde Club this semester, she thought, “Gee, Saturday looks good to me!”

Probably not, but the pun is just so terrible (and by terrible, I mean wonderful) to resist, and leading up to Saturday Looks Good To Me’s Saturday night performance at Olde Club, few people tried. But, oh, so much hype, how could any band live up to the expectations raised by such an all too perfect, hope-inspiring, bar-raising pun!

Saturday Looks Good To Me certainly tried, but - first! While a casually late crowd slowly filtered into Olde Club and others emerged from the basement of questionable substances, Philadelphia’s own Jotto opened up the show with their swinging, danceable brand of indie rock that sounded a lot like modern post-punk Britrock (this is the part where I throw around terms with ambiguous meaning that I’m probably not fully qualified to use - in other words, the best part!).

Though only a few people were around to watch the band perform when they started playing, Jotto got all eight people (yes, of course this is an exact number) moving their feet while using the intimate setting to their advantage by keeping up a conversation with the crowd and complimenting Swarthmore on its beautiful campus. Only disappointing part of Jotto’s set? When the band asked the audience what they like to do for fun, and one wonderful Swarthmore student shouted back “study!”

By the end of Jotto’s short set, Olde Club was filled with enough people eagerly awaiting Saturday Looks Good To Me to make pushing a necessary part of transportation. Between the cleverest pun of the semester and the band’s number seven ranking on WSRN’s “Top 10 Rock Records” of last year’s list, the turnout was good and the crowd enthusiastic (or maybe that had more to do with what was going on in the basement).

The band showed the same enthusiasm toward the audience, asking those at the front of the stage about which songs they’d like to hear and passing a tambourine (clearly, the best instrument known to man) around the crowd, giving a few of the luckier people standing close to the stage the chance to play along with the band.

Saturday Looks Good To Me’s effort to engage and interact with the audience succeeded as the crowd danced along to the band’s lo-fi indie pop full of shimmying guitars, rhythmic twists and powerful drums. Though their sound was not particularly unique or distinctive, it did get people clapping, stomping and singing along. Their song “Ocean,” with its warm, exuberant guitar, wistful lyrics, thumping drums and expressive simplicity was a favorite of the crowd’s. Also popular with the audience was “When I Lose My Eyes,” a song of fluttering speed, plugging guitars and nostalgic lyrics.

During the performance, mosh pits started and stopped at inappropriately fun moments as the band played songs both new and familiar. Even audience members who didn’t know the music had no problem dancing along, making the night into the kind of flurry of dance, song and fun times that Olde Club usually is.