CMJ Day Four: Workin' For The Weekend

CMJ is winding down, and so is Jaded Insider. But we've got plenty of show-going in us still for the weekend, which began Friday night (Nov. 3) with the Black Keys' set at Nokia Theatre in Times Square. The Akron duo surely rocked a packed house at the new venue, the biggest they've headlined yet in NYC, offering up a powerful mix of originals ("Set You Free," "Your Touch," "10 A.M. Automatic") and covers ("Grown So Ugly," "Have Love, Will Travel"). Still, we long for the days of seeing our hometown brethren in smaller environs, a fact we bemoaned with frontman Dan Auerbach at the just-as-packed afterparty at Salt Bar. But hey, free PBR, dude!

We were able to crawl out of bed and one block up the road to the Brooklyn Vegan party at the Annex. White Whale got things moving with a bevy of cool guitar licks, but we weren't really feeling the screamed vocals on tracks like "Admiral." The room grew unbearably crowded for Annuals' set, and the band looked visibly frustrated trying to cram all its gear onto the super-tiny stage. "Dry Clothes" came off culty and chanty, with guitarist Kenny Florence (who apparently got a buzz cut since Thursday, when he was sporting headbanger hair at the Fader party) urging the crowd to sing along with the title phrase. Sadly the band only had time for four songs, but closed on a high note with "Brother," a surging slice of indie rock drama not unlike the Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)."

Later in the day, it was back to the Annex for local rock trio the Big Sleep, which offered a stoner-friendly, mostly instrumental set that got the room nodding its collective heads. Silversun Pickups, who played at least five shows during the week, wrapped things up and, we're sad to say, they were kinda generic. More often than not they sound like Smashing Pumpkins, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but we were expecting something a little more exciting and engaging. No doubt they've got a couple of great tunes, particularly "Kissing Families" and "Lazy Eye." Still, there didn't seem to be anything all that special going on. In a way, the set summed up CMJ as a whole: the hype often overshadows the actual music one sees, but there's always at least one or two new discoveries that make the late nights, elbow-to-elbow audiences and hangovers worth enduring.