Smith Westerns, Bottom of the Hill
I recently relocated to San Francisco and have been itching to get out to see some live music. My inaugural outing finally came around this past Sunday when I went to see Smith Westerns at Bottom of the Hill, a great little venue over by Potrero Hill. At the time I hadn’t done much listening to the Smith Westerns most recent album, Dye it Blonde, but new the stat sheet well enough: teenagers from Chicago do sunny garage rock.
And that is definitely what they do. They powered through a quick, energetic set that has inspired repeated listens of their latest LP over the last couple of days. But even more than the music, what struck me the most was their presence on stage. I know a lot of the discussion about Smith Westerns has been about their age, and there definitely is more to them than that, but it is a good starting point to talk about their live experience. They act a lot like the cocky assholes you would expect them to be, saying things like “this is the song you should fuck your girlfriend to” and brushing hair out of their eyes like the Mitch Kramer look was something people actually thought was cool. And I think that is great. Its nice to see a little youthful bravado in a performance. They are trying so very hard to be cool, but they back it up with the music and are able to pull it off. I wore a crooked smile for most of the show, simultaneously thinking how annoying they were and how much I was enjoying them.
