The Wooden Birds
Sunday, October 18th – The Empyrean Coffee house

A few weeks before the show I was planning on going to see Ben Folds play with the Spokane Symphony then I saw a flyer for the Wooden Birds show at the Empyrean on my walk to work. I looked them up on their Myspace.

The two songs that you could listen to were fantastic and my mind was made up I was going to pass on seeing Ben Folds for a 3rd time and was going to see The Wooden Birds.

The Wooden Birds starting performing and at first it reminded me a little bit like Spoon. It was slick indie music with a small hint of alt country and a ton of perfection in every note. I thought it was ironic that he mentioned he was from Austin just like Spoon.

The Wooden Birds were the best sounding band to play the Empyrean in a long time. They knew how to work the small room. The volume was perfect. You could hear every instrument and the drummer was playing with brushes and it sounded like you were setting right next to the kit.I’ve been noticing a lot more drummers putting tambourines on their high hat. I think it’s a cool effect and when done properly.

4 of the best live performers I’ve ever heard. It’s so cool that I got to see them with 50-60 other people from Spokane in such a cool small venue. I was sucked in by the quirky, exciting indie music with fun lyrics including, “No one takes us seriously. She was 7 when I was 17” from the song - Seven Seventeen and “Mama saving all her sugar for you” from the song - Sugar.

The Wooden Birds live show has passion, confidence, pride; tons of skill and fun all come across in the 30 minute or so set that played most of the album their debut album “Magnolia”.  They were smiling and looked like they were truly happy to play their songs for us. 

Andrew Kenny’s new project is a knock out of the ball park. Take a listen to The Wooden Birds on our Podcast HERE!

Check out more photos from the show here!

Matt@checkitoutmusic.com