Audience members receive free copy of Brooklyn-native band's full-length
By the time Breaking Laces, a Brooklyn-based indie rock and power-pop trio, took the stage at New Brookland Tavern, the crowd was ready to jam — and so was the band.
Concertgoers got warmed up during a performance by local rock group Full Color Footage. They impressed with a distinctive mix of commanding guitars, feverish drumming, fairly delicate keys and dynamic vocals.
Though the band mostly opted to forgo banter and maintained a fairly laid-back stage presence, their music spoke for itself and energized the crowd of about 30. Much of the energy grew from a group of actors from Workshop Theatre's production of "Hairspray," there to support lead singer and keyboardist Mario McClean, himself a member of the cast.
That enthusiasm was infectious, though, and band members engaged their audience with a healthy round of hand clapping and McClean's striking vocal range, which was especially gripping as his voice at times approached a falsetto.
Though Breaking Laces' set — and those of fellow performers Jurassic Heat, Brent Lundy and the Lucky 13 — was more lightly attended, those who remained each received a free copy of Breaking Laces' sixth full-length album, "When You Find Out" and enjoyed performances that featured much more intensity than the group's studio recordings.
It's a bit of a truism, really, that music so often just sounds better live, but it was one Breaking Laces brought to the fore Sunday. In the studio, they are polished, refined and restrained, performing with a power-pop immediacy that sounds somewhat subdued.
Put them on stage, however, and watch as they throw off those restraints to give a raw, uninhibited performance.
During the performance of one of the album's strongest tracks "God in Training," which lead singer Billy Hartong dedicated to all the tennis-racquet guitarists and hairbrush singers who believe in the potential of their "instruments," the band broke loose as Hartong and bassist Rob Chojnacki jammed and dropped low together. In the process, they combined a blaring, rocking intensity with a sense of youthful innocence and ambition.
"I Do, I Don't," the record's closing track, provided a simple mix of instrumentation that includes guitar, bass and drum but managed to produce a surprisingly lush sound. Hartong sings the song with pangs of yearning to a girl, "I'll turn you around or fade away." In context, it's slightly ironic because fading away is not something this band has any intention of doing.
Indeed, they maintained a high energy and a dominating stage presence down to their set's last note. They grabbed the audience's attention with brief and experimental uses of reverb and distortion effects before transitioning back into more standard fare, which seemed especially indebted to classic and Southern rock influences.
But Breaking Laces went out with a bang, their music reached a fever pitch and Chojnacki swatted at drummer Seth Masarsky's cymbals. As Hartong took one final emphatic jump off Masarsky's drum kit, though, the stage fell silent, and listeners' ears were left to ring, evidence of the set's commanding energy.
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