[Review] JoyCut | 10.29.14 @ Springwater Supper Club

JoyCut
Springwater Supper Club, Nashville, TN
October 29, 2014

Review by Beth McAllister

Sometimes, we like to be early for a show so that we can scope out the best spot for sound, sight, and overall enjoyment.

Well, on Wednesday night, we apparently were overachievers, because we showed up to the venue some two hours early only to find out that the show wouldn’t start until at least ten o’clock. Don’t worry, though – we’re not ones to let time go to waste, so we promptly ordered a beer and got chatting with the bartender and the door guy (who, by the way, became our best friend throughout the night). They began to gush about how excited they were for the show, how they’ve seen a ton of performances and were pretty quick to judge if a band was good or not. We listened intently because something told us these guys knew what they were talking about, and, when showtime came around, we moved to our reserved table to gear up for what we knew would be an entertaining performance.

The group JoyCut are originally from Italy and, let us tell you, it is an interesting experience to be sitting in a bar with Italian being spoken at a rapid rate all around you. The band manager, a very sweet woman with a heavy Italian accent, came up to us, gave us a free copy of the CD and began talking about how this is the band’s second time in Nashville.

Suddenly, a ghostly sound began to emanate throughout the room, and conversation tapered off. We turned towards the stage only to see just one man at a set of controls for a computer sound system, his hands twisting dials this way and that way as if he was a mad scientist plotting to destroy the world. For a few minutes he put the audience in a trance, and then his two bandmates hopped up on stage. One taking his place behind a drum kit and the other behind a drum with chimes and a tambourine attached, they suddenly picked up on a simultaneous beat that made them look as ferocious and sound as coordinated as an army marching into battle. We got chills watching them, and barely five minutes into the show the door guy approached us and said, “These guys are awesome.”

For the first time ever, we didn’t even notice until well after the fact that the band never really spoke to the audience – they were so engrossed in their instrumental pieces that combined rock, pop, and electronica that we became just as engaged and focused, dying to hear what would come next. There were hardly any prolonged pauses – each song flowed into the next with ease and would continue for anywhere from five to ten minutes straight, but time didn’t seem to be an issue. We didn’t want the songs to end.

Band members traded instruments, guitars shrieked, drums sounded the alarm, ghostly noises changed abruptly with just the turn of a dial – ‘intense’ does not even begin to describe what we were witnessing. As they played, people gathered closer and closer to the stage, no longer able to just watch from a distance, and when the show ended (with the band thanking the crowd genuinely and profusely) an audience member shouted, “If you’ve got more, we’ll hear it!”

Usually when a band comes to Music City, they’re hoping to impress the musically educated population enough to be invited back; this time, we’re hoping our enthusiasm as a crowd will convince JoyCut to come back for a third (and a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh….) time.