KEXP Yule Benefit, Day 1

Last night at Neumo's, the 4th annual KEXP Yule Benefit was chockablock with music. We missed out on local band The Hands and showed up mid-set for Annuals, for whom we saw enough of their Arcade Fire-meets-Neutral Milk Hotel-meets Animal Collective sound to know that we need to see them in their entirety whenever they come to town again.

Next up was Junior Boys, who put on a solid set with their mixture of live and electro elements (guitar, drums, laptop, keyboards, and samplers). We're tempted to describe their electro-pop as ambient or atmospheric, though that's not quite right. As one of our companions remarked, "How can such unsexy people make such sexy music?" By the time they worked up to playing their hit "In the Morning," Junior Boys had the crowd happy. But not as happy as they would be for Ghostland Observatory. In the past, we had dismissed the Austin duo as being one-note and screechy. But in this enclosed venue with lots of ass-shaking, they totally had us won over. With his braids and charismatic flair, Aaron Behrens demonstrated that Pocahontas totally knows how to work it. Though the crowd was enthusiastic throughout the set, GO got the biggest reponses for tracks like "Sad Sad City" [mp3] and "Shoot 'Em Down."

Not so surprisingly, post-Ghostland everyone started to clear out, which was a crying shame, as reunited-for-this-week-only Juno had yet to play their tight nearly hour-and-a-half set. Juno always has a lot going on (three guitars, dude), but their strong undercurrents keep them grounded and that's exactly why they work live. They've retained their '90s sound (but '90s in the good way), by dabbling in the quiet-loud and the soft-rough. Initially in the set, the bass was way too heavy, making the mix muddy, but the bassist corrected it two-thirds of the way through, and the sound was vastly improved. As compared to their albums, all the songs they played last night seemed to be just a few beats slower, perhaps due to them being just a tad rusty. Along with favorites like "January Arms" and "When I Was In," they also played a bunch of songs they rarely ever perform live: their cover of DJ Shadow's "High Noon," along with "A Thousand Motors Pressed Upon the Heart," which, in this incarnation, had vocals to accompany the complex instrumentation.

Your last chance to see Juno on this go-round (and maybe ever) is tonight at the second and final night of the KEXP Yule Benefit. Along with Juno and Junior Boys, tonight will also feature Ted Leo and Cold War Kids. Tix are sold out, but do what you gotta do to get in.

Photo care of Flickr / user Crackers United.