Does a Grizzly Bear sit at the kitchen table with its dog? Apparently so.
DALLAS -- Grizzly Bear's Monday night appearance at the Granada Theater was a scorcher of a show in more ways than one.
For starters, the line to get into the sold-out concert, outside in the sticky, stifling evening air, wrapped around the back of the building and snaked through the Granada's parking lot. (In fact, vocalist/guitarist Ed Droste announced that the band waited an extra 10 minutes before taking the stage in order to accommodate the sizable crowd.)
Once inside, the packed room often felt like a soupy sauna. Despite the occasional gust of air, the audience spent most of the band's headlining set sweating profusely and making multiple trips to the bar to avoid collapsing in a soggy hipster heap.
Then there's the Brooklyn-based foursome onstage and the metaphorical "heat" it brought to the Metroplex, riding a wave of considerable hype and critical acclaim for its latest LP Veckatimest. Few blog-approved indie rock bands are hotter and, most surprisingly, seemingly confident in their skills beyond manufacturing a hit-of-the-moment.
That tune, the achingly gorgeous Two Weeks, came midway through Grizzly Bear's roughly 80-minute set. Most buzz bands save the hit (or hits) for the end, in order to keep the mildly curious in place for the duration. But Droste and company dispensed with the reason at least some of the crowd endured the overly warm conditions, a fact reflected in the number of people heading for the exits after Two Weeks concluded.
Those who bailed missed out on an assured, luminous and slightly off-kilter evening of music from an ensemble conjuring lush moods punctuated by celestial harmonies and constantly shifting tempos. Few bands have the nerve to let dreamy washes of sound do the heavy lifting, but Grizzly Bear made it look shockingly simple. Tracks like Colorado, Knife and Foreground were dazzling in their complexity, lyrically maddening and just as impressive for the precise moods each evoked.
Sizzling hot bands can cool off quickly, as the restless masses move on to something newer and warmer, but acts like Grizzly Bear burn with an ambition that suggests a long, fruitful career well after the trendsetters stop paying attention.
