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Cymbals Eat Guitars – Live @ Pitchfork

Date July 20, 2009

Cymbals Eat Guitars have been a favorite of mine since first hearing their debut album early this year.  My anticipations were set very high for their live show but they still managed to blow me away. For being a such a new band, there was a surprisingly large crowd gathered to see what all the buzz was about, something that Joseph sheepishly commented on while expressing how excited they were to play the festival. If they were nervous though, it was impossible to tell after they started playing. They were loose, energetic, and very fun to watch.

The band also proved to be formidable musicians, especially for a group of guys barely out of their teens. Joseph especially stood out as a fantastic frontman, with some truly awesome guitar work and strong, powerful vocals. The rest of the band played their parts perfectly and looked like they were having a great time doing it.

The band opened with “And The Hazy Sea”, the explosive opening song on Why There Are Mountains and they continued with an amazing selection of songs from their debut as well as their new single, “Tunguska”.  The highs and lows of a song like “Cold Spring” were amplified by the outdoor setting and the slow-building “Share” sounded as transcendent as ever.

The band closed with a song that is easily near the top of my list for best of the year, “Wind Phoenix”.  They didn’t have the trumpets on stage for the intro, but Brian Hamilton’s keyboards filled in nicely.  It was awesome seeing the band enthusiastically rocking out to the song which has soundtracked much of my year.  There’s no doubt that they made a ton of new fans among the crowd and they set the bar extremely high for the rest of the festival.

MP3 Wind Phoenix
MP3 And The Hazy Sea

Follow the jump to see more pictures. Click here for the whole set.


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Category Posted by in Festival, Live

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One Response to “Cymbals Eat Guitars – Live @ Pitchfork”


  1. Promenace said:

    March 12th, 2010 at 11:09 am

    Went to go see Cymbals Eat Guitar @ The Earl in Atlanta, and I must say these guys sounded like a complete pile of garbage. They played for about an hour, which was painfully dreadful to listen to, as well as to watch. The room started to clear out within the first fifteen minutes of their set. The lead singer of CGE looked like a damn moron as poked his tongue out and quivered in a fetal position. He also couldn’t of been more then 21 years old, which I think I saw his dad in the crowd cheering him on with sympathy. It was literally amateur night with this god awful band, they were so bad. One good thing did come from this show, the group “Bear in Heaven.” These guys opened up for CGE and killed it, they were so good.