Grouplove w/Muna and Dilly Dally
The Crocodile, Seattle, WA
10.14.16

Loud and energetic from start to finish, a Grouplove show is not for the faint of heart. During their sold out Seattle show at The Crocodile there was barely a break from the intense head-banging and flashing lights.

The night kicked off with the raw and gravelly vocals of Dilly Dally, followed quickly by dark techno-pop band, MUNA. From the second they started their set, MUNA’s music had an uncanny resemblance to that of CHVRCHES. Honestly, if you put the music on shuffle and didn’t know either very well, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell one from another. This is by no means a bad thing however; MUNA had a fantastic set of dreamy and bright vocals, backed by a darker, but still pop band. The show was highly energetic, fun, and perfect for the small venue.

Grouplove attracted a much more diverse crowd than one would expect. There was, of course, a group of teenage girls constantly screaming and dancing during the entire set, but there were also enthusiastic older couples, and even younger kids among the crowd with their parents.

Their set, however, wasn’t quite as diverse as the crowd it entertained. Grouplove have a pretty noisy, indie garage-rock sound, with tracks that flip between encasing vocals like Matt Shultz on old Cage The Elephant albums, and something a bit more instrumentally fluid like Cold War Kids. The set opened up with “I’m With You,” starting with a dramatic and ominous piano intro from front man Christian Zucconi.

After a few more popular head-bangers including “Tongue Tied” and “Welcome to Your Life,” the band filed off stage among the crowd’s cheering. Soon after, Zucconi quickly came back on with an acoustic guitar to sing the intro of “Enlighten Me,” a track off their latest release, Big Mess. Aside from such fun performance of “Do You Love Someone” earlier in the night, this was probably my favorite part of the entire night. Each song of the main set, while all lively and  thrilling performances, were all very similar. This little solo intro was absolutely beautiful, and I think this is how the song sounds best—just Zucconi, just the guitar, without any backing tracks or additional layers from the band. Watching him perform too was something special, emotional and deep to match the lyrics. Eventually, the rest of the band shyly shuffled on stage just in time for a hard-hitting bass drop into the remainder of the track.

I’m pretty into Grouplove’s music, but I think MUNA really stole the night. They had a really great performance, and even though pretty much no one in the crowd knew their songs, they were so happy to be performing and share themselves with everyone. Grouplove’s set seemed to be just one intense headbanger after another, until “Enlighten Me.” The set was good, definitely worth seeing once, but it wasn’t the kind of performance you leave feeling like their set was way too short, and you need to see them again right now.

Review by Lulu Dawson
Photos by Zach Etahiri

GROUPLOVE
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101816_grouplove_crocodile-31-of-33Muna101816_muna_crocodile-8-of-14

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101816_muna_crocodile-4-of-14Dilly Dally
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