Count Basie Theatre is a local venue I am very familiar with because I have seen countless plays there, but coming into it to see a concert was a very different experience. The whole atmosphere surrounding it was odd, especially to have such a well-known 80s band, Erasure, playing there. However, I didn’t go to the concert, on August 4th to see Erasure, I went to see openers, Young Love, a dance-rock band from NYC.
Walking into the venue I noticed that I was probably one of the youngest people there and one of the most excited to see Young Love. This also made me nervous because I didn’t know how the set would go, since playing to a crowd when not many people know your music and are probably twice Dan Keyes’ age, the front-man of Young Love, must be very nerve wrecking. As soon as the clock hit 8 P.M. the band came on stage and started playing an intro to Underneath the Night Sky, you could definitely tell they were nervous since the band failed to make any eye-contact with the crowd. Though, as Dan Keyes began singing the crowd seemed to open up and was willing to hear what he had to say. Still, there was a little movement from the crowd.
The next song played was Find A New Way, Young Love’s current single. At this point the crowd began to get into their performance more and more people than I thought, actually recognized this song. The band could tell that people were enjoying their set and suddenly seemed more comfortable up on the stage as Keyes was did his usual dancing, of jumping around and throwing his fist up in the air. Keyes began to really reach out to the crowd at this point in Young Love’s set making it seem more personal and intimate, although the venue is very large. The band slowed things down a bit with the song Closer To You and then the set went back to being up-beat with the song Good Times, where Keyes told everyone to, “Bob their heads,” the crowd listened.
Throughout Young Love’s set there had been many yells for them to play Discotech, and it just happened to be the last song Young Love played of the night. The crowd clapped along to the beat and some people even got up out of their seats to dance. It was a great way to end their set and everyone from the crowd to the band was pleased about how it turned out. Young Love had redeemed themselves from the initial nervousness and ended up winning over much of the crowd. The lobby of Count Basie even filled up with people waiting in line to buy Young Love’s album Too Young To Fight It.
Overall Young Love’s performance ended up being very good and warmed the crowd up for Erasure. The only problem was that Young Love didn’t seem comfortable in a venue such as Count Basie. They seem more suitable for shows with a “general- admission” audience, so people could really enjoy it and everyone could dance and feed off each other’s energy. If it wasn’t for that issue Young Love’s set would have been close to amazing. I would definitely recommend seeing Young Love on their up-coming headlining tour in November as long as you have an open mind and are ready to dance.
Amanda Agueda is a staff write with Musiqtone. You can contact her at amandaagueda@musiqtone.com.