Pond Concert Review

By Josh Mathew

Utterly brilliant is the best way, I think, to verbalize POND’s November 8th performance at Elsewhere in Brooklyn. Elsewhere is a fairly new venue in Bushwick, Brooklyn housing a wonderfully crafted performance space, a bar, cafe, and outdoor courtyard. A perfect, intimate space for up and coming bands to really showcase their sound.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the band, POND is essentially Tame Impala’s quirky, outlandish brother sharing bandmates including Jay Watson and Nicholas Allbrook in addition to vocalist/guitarist Joe Ryan, and keyboardist Jamie Terry.

The night started out with opening act Juan Wauters who put on a very unconventional but entertaining show singing around just three songs within his allotted 40-minute set. The rest of the time was spent clapping and chanting sporadically, getting us to sing along to an unusual song about fruit trucks, and running through the crowd racing various people. Despite the lack of music in the opening act, I can happily say I was amused.

When POND came out, the crowd was a bit antsy after Juan’s unusual performance but that quickly ended when the band opened up with the song “30,000 Megatons”. I will say that the song itself is not one of my favorites from POND’s catalogue but the energy they injected into it got me excited and truly set the tone for the rest of the set. Most of their songs are dense, psychedelic jams with soaring synths, guitars, and lively drums which I assumed would ruin the live mix considering how thick and heavy each instrument is but I was proven wrong. Each instrument had its own playing field and shined through the mix and this was accompanied by the vivacious zeal each band member had while playing through the set. The energy was tangible and the front-man Nick Allbrook made sure to keep the crowd engaged by talking with us in between songs, crowd-surfing at one point, and moving up and around the stage.   I went into the concert only liking a few songs from their album “The Weather” and by the end of it, through my admiration for their live interpretations, I came out loving each and every song and appreciating it for what it was meant to be.

Would I see them again? Hell yes. That was one of the best concerts I’ve been to and I’ve seen my fair share of concerts.

4.8/10