Concert Review: Twin Sister & Wild Beasts @ Turner Hall Ballroom Milwaukee – 10/2/2011

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After one of the most exciting weekends in Wisconsin sports history, the last thing on many people’s minds would be traveling to downtown Milwaukee to see a concert. Despite this reality, Sunday night at Turner Hall Ballroom proved to be icing on the triumphant cake for concertgoers as the UK’s Wild Beasts took to the stage after, dream-pop newcomers, Twin Sister opened the evening’s musical festivities.

Twin Sister has garnered an admirable following over the past few years with their two EPs, but with last week’s release of their first full-length LP, In Heaven, it looks like big things are ahead for this Long Island-based 5-some. Led by blond-haired and jean jacket clad Andrea Estella, Twin Sister excelled as they took to the stage in a high-energy set that took their spin on dream-pop and mashed up with genres from early ’90s R&B to electro-funk, disco and chillwave. Through Estellas’ whispered delivery and Axl Rose-like sway, the set was short and sweet featuring tracks, from In Heaven, like the xylophone heavy “Daniel” and keyboard loops, blip and bloops from the atmospheric “Kimmi in a Rice Field” as they wrapped up their set before passing the baton to the evening’s featured act.

Like the early stages of a storm, the dark purple tone that saturated the back curtain was highlighted by flashing white beams of light as the Wild Beasts took to the stage. Beginning with “Lions Share,” the piano-laden first track off the recently released Smother, the theatrical falsetto of vocalist and guitarist Hayden Thorpe set the tone for the baroque-meets almost vaudeville vocal stylings that would be present the rest of the show.

During a short break, the 4-some, accompanied by a touring keyboardist/backing vocalist, chit-chatted about this being their first time playing in Wisconsin and the standard admiration of the haunting beauty of Turner Hall. With this being their first visit, the Wild Beasts decided to not only concentrate on their latest LP as nearly half the set came from 2009′s critically acclaimed Twin Dancers, with the welcome addition of “She Purred, While I Grrred” from 2008′s Limbo, Panto.

The show’s highlights came from tracks off of Twin Dancers in a 3-song burst through “Hooting & Howling,” “All the Kings Men” and “The Fun Powder Plot” – all churning with the hollowed out jungle rhythms and exchange of Thorpe’s falsetto and bassist Tom Flemming’s low-end croon. The ballroom wasn’t filled to capacity by any means on this Sunday evening, but as the show progressed the cabaret tables emptied and everyone congregated to the front of the stage for dancing, bobbing and in some cases – spastic movements mirroring Flemming’s own as he wailed “Watch Me! Watch Me!” during “All the Kings Men.”

At the end of the evening, the Wild Beasts came back on to close down their set with Smother‘s “Albatross” and as the song melded with a soft-drone into “End Come Too Soon,” it was apparent that the songs title and sentiment held true to all those who closed down their crazy weekend with Twin Sister and Wild Beasts at Turner Hall Ballroom.

mp3 – Twin Sister – Kimmi In a Rice field

mp3 – Wild Beasts – Thankless Thing