There are few bands still breathing that would make me park my car where I did tonight (Laugh amongst yourselves.). I landed in Center City with five minutes to spare before Alberta Cross played their last show in the US for who-knows-how-long. I ran.... ...into a half-full Electric Factory? Baffling. The upstairs was completely closed. No champagne bar? No Emily from the Phoenix show?
The howl was quite healing, as Alberta Cross sucker-punched my confusion back into reverie with "Leave Us or Forgive Us". I wish I could be nonchalant about it, I wish I could be objective, but no. I love this band, and to see them was a treat. "Taking Control" spat out next, while unknowing indie drones filtered in wearing shoes I'm sure would have retrieved a laugh from me had "Ramblin Home" not been so good on stage. The tightest jeans I owned looked like collegiate sweats in this crowd. I could smile to myself. "Is that a woman singing?" a misdirected cougar asked behind me. After a genuine double take, I said 'Yes' and pointed towards the door.
Rarely in the set did any member of the band make eye contact. Instead it was Petter Ericson Stakee who led a mostly silent symphony from the front. No orders were barked out, no fingers pointed. Stakee spun with a skinny balance that would make Chris Robinson hungry, waving his tambourine and with the slightest blink bringing the band full circle.
Dedicating to Pete Yorn, the band leaped face first into "Broken Side of Time", the title track from their new album, stunning a few Yorn-know-nothings into attention with it's thick English beat-down balladry. This song, if any, announces the intention of this band. It's as revealing as it is raw, as powerful as anything that was to come of the stage all night. "We're gonna try a gospel song now" offered Ericson, before the band switched positions, entering Moog and mixer, but leaving the a capella lead-off to Ericson himself, introducing a fantastic "Rise From The Shadows" . The biblical spook hung perfectly in the room as the haunting coos from the mic mixed sublimely with Terry Wolfer's fuzzy progressive bass lines and finite piano drops, leading to temptation? No, back to claps and serenade, letting his bandmates take that all important breath, exhaling, when you know that you've won.
The London-transplants finished with "APX", the new single, and shockingly, it was the best song of the night. There was a fresh urgency and pain to the performance, a band on the verge ready to lie in the bed they've made.
Alberta Cross heads back to the UK on Saturday, and I doubt they will open for anyone the next time they jump the pond. Safe Travels, thieves.
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