Carnival Spotlight: Cloud Nothings & Vacationer

This past weekend ushered in the College’s 92nd annual Winter Carnival.  Alongside the spectator sports and high-energy dances, the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) presented a concert in Wilson Hall on Friday, Feb. 13. The show featured three musical acts across  a myriad of genres and made for an engaging, idiosyncratic musical experience.

The brief opening act was a new student band, Movies, featuring Will Cuneo ’15, Nick Rehmus ’15.5 and Bjorn Peterson ’15.5 in a punk-rooted ensemble with an impressively polished sound and engaging stage presence. As they played through a set of dynamic songs, often shifting time signature or tempo mid-song for a diverse listening experience, their energy was palpable. The performance featured improvisatory ornamentation, particularly in the vocal arena.

Eased between two punk acts, Vacationer, based out of Philadelphia and Brooklyn, offered a sharp tonal contrast to headliner Cloud Nothings.  Frontman Kenny Vasoli has described their music as “Nu-hula,” and their tropics-infused, surf-rock rooted sound was in rare form on Friday.  Featuring Ryan Zimmaro on drums, Michael Mullin on keyboard, Greg Altman on guitar and Matthew Young on a hard-to-miss vibraphone, the band was accompanied by a video projection of what could have been old footage of band members’ seaside summers. Perhaps culled from childhoods past, the intercut tropical scenes would have put the Brazilian Tourist Board to shame.

Vacationer’s breezy set and mood-setting technical effects created a sunny, feel-good experience.  What made the show truly engaging were the dedicated performances of the band members, particularly Vasoli, whose goofy grin and mess of curly hair enhanced his bubbly demeanor and confident stage presence. If his quirky dance moves were any indication, Vasoli seemed to be enjoying his indoor beach party as much as the audience before him.

More than anything, Vacationer seemed committed to making the audience feel good inside. At the end of the band’s set, as the scene of a family enjoying some faraway beach rolled in the backdrop and the band eased into another string of sweet, yearning melodies, it became nearly impossible to resist the temptation to loosen your hips and give yourself over to the good vibes.

Following this dreamlike set, Cloud Nothings came thundering in, providing a stark contrast to the easy listening and buoyancy of the preceding set. The three-piece act, a far cry from its origins as an underground solo project by frontman Dylan Baldi, fully embraced the caustic, dissonant style indicative of the band’s latest record, “Here and Nowhere Else.” Yet amidst the searing riffs of bassist Dan Saleh and propulsive, acrobatic work of drummer Jayson Gerycz lay melodies and a harmonic structure as effective and pop-oriented as Baldi’s initial solitary efforts.

Within this thrilling and profuse experience, moments of urgency - sometimes bordering on anxiety - passed by. However, the immaculate structure of the songwriting offered a sense of precision amidst the madness. Each song played less like an endless jam and more like a roller coaster or a lightning rod speeding through the air, fathomable only in its larger structure. In the end, the intricacies of each virtuosic run in the guitar or deafening drum line formed a breathtaking whole.

Cloud Nothings, if not for every listener, was an undeniable marvel and an impressive and accomplished ensemble that has mastered the nuances of a highly impressive song catalogue. In one of the most jaw-dropping moments of the performance, a lengthy song reached a brief rest amidst a cresting crescendo. All three performers managed to hit this millisecond of silence in perfect synchronicity before launching back into a whirlwind of screeching guitar and propulsive percussion. This incredible moment, demonstrative of Baldi, Saleh, and Gerycz’s impressive skills as instrumentalists, rendered extremely effectively in live performance.

Audience reaction is bound to vary following a performance like that of Cloud Nothings, but it is perhaps indisputable that their set was the dark, harrowing peak of an impressive and dynamic concert. All in all, MCAB’s Concert Committee succeeded in bringing together polished, accomplished acts for an engaging concert with something for nearly anyone.