It’s been a Sea Wolf centric month for me. I feel like I’ve been a silent witness to the beginnings of something very special indeed. I first saw the band perform live at the Treasure Island music festival in September. I was hooked. The following week their first full length album, Leaves in the River, was released on Dangerbird Records. I was blown away again. So it was with great anticipation that I ventured north to San Francisco on the first chilly evening of the season to see Sea Wolf kick of their tour at The Independent.
First things first. Sea Wolf is actually the moniker of singer/songwriter Alex Brown Church. For the past six months, the indie music blogs have been awash in praise for the band’s 1st EP, Get to the River before it Runs too Low. Now there’s a new round of well-deserved accolades for the LP, Leaves in the River. Church has gathered a rock-solid group of musicians to tour with him in support of the new album. They are Lisa Fendelander, keyboards; Theodore Liscinski, bass; Aniela Perry, cello; Byron Reynolds, drums; and Aaron Robinson, electric guitar.
Sarah Lov opened, with Sea Wolf’s Anita Perry on cello and Zac Rae at the keyboards. The small crowd distanced themselves from far from the stage, watching attentively from afar. This distance highlighted and amplified the vulnerable and frail nature of Lov’s vocals and arrangements. I couldn’t even bring myself to go up to the front of the stage to photograph the set, feeling like it would be an intrusion. Thank goodness for telephoto lenses! My only real gripe about the set was that Lov seemed an odd choice as an opener; She didn’t exactly leave the audience energized and pumped up for Sea Wolf.
In true SF aloof and cool style, the audience remained well back from the stage even as Sea Wolf came out. Several of us took the lead and bridged that ten-foot gap, and by the time the first bittersweet notes came forth, a real audience had congealed. There was still a three-foot gap between the audience and the stage, but as the sole photographer at the show this was the perfect situation. My own private photo pit!
At this point I must confess, I’m a photographer, not a writer. I’m at bit at a loss for words trying to describe the haunting melancholy and fervent sounds and sights that spun forth from Sea Wolf that evening. One thing I can say is that Church made a wise choice by placing cellist Aniela Perry center stage, making her literally his right hand (wo)man. It is this twisting whirling interplay between Perry’s fiercely passionate cello and Church’s mournful vocals and that provides much of the tension in the band’s live performance.
So if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, I’ll just give up on the verbiage and give you my 20,000 word visual essay on the magic that was Sea Wolf at the Independent.
