Silversun Pickups Ensorcell Salt Lake City

Three years after their last studio album: 2012’s Neck of the Woods, Silversun Pickups are on tour promoting Better Nature. Evolving from their earlier sound, Silversun Pickups have become more keyboard-driven with a more direct beat and delivery, but without losing any of their mix of fuzzy, distorted guitar, strumming bass and technical drums.

English rock band Foals opened for Silversun Pickups on Wednesday, Dec. 9, in the Rockwell room at The Complex in downtown Salt Lake City. The crowd were treated to a mix of preprogrammed electronica while Foals prepared to take the stage. They opened with “What Went Down,” and an assault of energy. Lead singer Andrew Mears belted lyrics into the mic with relentless aggression. As their set continued, the crowd went calm and still during their top hit, the slower-paced “My Number.” As their set wrapped up, Mears showed no loss of enthusiasm and ended up climbing down from the stage and screaming the lyrics to their final song before jumping into the crowd. Their set was fast and furious, but lacked a little engagement with the crowd. There was really no acknowledgment until they finished, but they gave a heartfelt thank you before leaving, and the crowd reciprocated.

As the stage was set for the Silversun Pickups to go on, the music box theme at the end of “Cradle (Better Nature)” floated out to the eagerly awaiting crowd. Silversun Pickups took the stage with beaming smiles and kicked straight into the full song with explosive energy. The crowd bounced with the beat and sang along. They followed with one of their most high-energy songs, “Well Thought Out Twinkles.” Lead singer/guitarist Brian Aubert prowled the stage while bassist Nikki Monninger bounced up and down in her silver-sequined dress and Dorothy-esque ruby red slippers. Sadly, for the first few songs, drummer Christopher Guanlao didn’t have any stage lights on him (“He IS here!” Aubert assured the crowd), so the audience wasn’t treated to his frenzied drumming and rhythmic head-bobbing (think Animal from the Muppets but with pinpoint precision and more technical playing).

As the set progressed, Aubert took time to thank the crowd, and even mentioned his telling a Florida DJ that “Salt Lake City is one of my favorite cities to play!” A smile crept across his face, a look of gratitude and humility, many times throughout the set. Monninger never stopped smiling the whole time. Keyboardist Joe Lester was stoic and calm. The contrast between the timbre of Aubert’s and Monninger’s voices, mixed with the fills and electronic manipulation by Guanlao and Lester’s upbeat flams and fills captivated the audience for a good solid 75 minutes. The band wrapped up with the opening to “Growing Old is Getting Old,” leading straight into their top hit, “Lazy Eye.” Silversun Pickups’ frenetic energy and exuberance had fully passed into the crowd by then, and the room was bouncing in unison until the end of the song. Silversun Pickups left the stage to near deafening cheers from the audience. After several minutes of “one more song!” chants from the crowd, Silversun Pickups placated us with a three-song encore, mostly from their new album, and then a salute, a bow and a thank you.