Thermals w/ the Big Sleep

[jsnow2]

I saw the Thermals and opener the Big Sleep Saturday night and have to say it was just plain awesome.  Very impressed with the Big Sleep and then the Thermals just came in and blew the roof off the black cat.  Sick!

[kcjones119]

I thought the Thermals were really good, so were Statehood.
 
 I've now seen the Big Sleep three times (Saturday, plus 2x's opening for the Hold Steady), I've gotten real tired of them.  They have 2 songs I like and they played them first on Saturday night.

[Darth Ed]

Damn, I really wanted to attend this show, as I love the Thermals. I hope they come back soon. I really don't get why they aren't more popular.

[azaghal1981]

They were popular enough to sell out the black cat. That kinda surprised me. Haha those first 2 songs were the highlight of the big sleep for me too. I'd never seen them before so those songs had me amped. But it was like they shot their collective load too early for lack of a better analogy.  

[Reod Dai]

I saw The Thermals open for Death Cab in Seattle about three years ago and was not impressed at all.  Perhaps they've gotten better and I should give them another chance, because people on here won't stop raving about them.

[ggw]

The Thermals
 
 Thermals singer/guitarist Hutch Harris seemed genuinely shocked that the Black Cat was sold out for his band's show Friday. "D.C., thank you so much!" Harris kept repeating -- almost his only chatter. "I had no [expletive] idea."
 
 Though the Portland, Ore., natives already had the crowd's love, they tried to earn it nonetheless. Considered an indie-darling supergroup -- Harris and bassist Kathy Foster also perform as the duo Hutch and Kathy, and drummer Lorin Coleman hails from Virga -- the quartet specializes in lo-fi garage rock with a precious-punk edge. (Their latest album, "The Body, the Blood, the Machine," makes a political-religious statement a la "American Idiot" but sounds created by activists-turned- musicians instead of the other way around.)
 
 During their hourlong set, the Thermals sped through their repertoire of high-energy, lightning-fast tracks characterized by driving rhythms, guitar feedback and Harris's manic vocals -- which are something one has to get used to. More speaking than singing, Harris delivers the group's lyrics with the squawked, arrhythmic affect of the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle (or, for the less alt-schooled, say the B-52s' Fred Schneider). His nasal high pitch is less pronounced live, however, and more pleasantly blends in with the band's boisterousness.
 
 The brisk pace of the show also compensated for the sameness that afflicts the Thermals' catalogue. With an act this lively, the group's touring success should no longer be a surprise.
 
 
 -- Tricia Olszewski
 
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/04/AR2007030401120_2.html

[jsnow2]

They have come quite a way in their live performances.  I would agree in the past they left a little to be desired.  That was then.  They are very fun, very tight, and provide a high energy experience.  The new album translates exceptionally well.  "Here's Your future" started the fire and the black cat just kept burning for the next hour long set.  Awesome.