Live At The Bottleneck, Lawrence, Kansas
By Hannah Clemens

For years Eisley have toiled dutifully as openers for bands who share none of their traits. They’ve suffered through bad sound (the curse of the main support spot) and standoffish venue owners, roadside breakdowns and mid-tour guitar losses, and gone through it all with a self-deprecating smile on their faces. Despite their ever-growing popularity, Eisley’s label has not trusted them with anything more than a few headlining tours at a time, until now.

And there could be no more appropriate place for Eisley to headline than Lawrence, Kansas: headquarters of twee, where the harmonizing DuPree sisters can expand their vintage wardrobe at one of the multitudinous corner boutiques or shop for records alongside their fans. Eisley were born to play in Lawrence, and for one night it seemed as though Lawrence was made to welcome Eisley.

From the time California openers Brighten took the stage, audience participation was a feature of the evening. The stifling heat in the Bottleneck didn’t stop the sold-out crowd from swaying, clapping, and singing along to Brighten’s catchier refrains. Even though Simon Dawes played a set that was long enough to suggest their name was at the top of the marquee, they still managed to elicit enthusiastic arm-waves and whoops of approval after every song. The tables have turned on the Final Noise tour; the alternative rockers are opening for Eisley rather than vise versa, and anyone who has ever paid $30 for a ticket to see Eisley play six songs and then left before a lackluster headliner can’t help but feel a little smug.

When Eisley finally emerged to play the wintry “Mr. Pine,” the heat seemed to dissipate temporarily. Three of the songs on the setlist that night were from the earliest days of Eisley’s career and have not been released on an album since the band signed with Warner Brothers, but that didn’t stop the crowd from singing along. In fact, the only time most of the audience stopped singing along was for the six new candidates for Eisley’s sophomore release (a disproportionate quantity that belies the fact that this is supposed to be the final tour to promote Room Noises, the band’s 2005 full-length debut). These new songs hinted at the band’s remarkable growth – numerous rhythm and chord changes resemble The Bends -era Radiohead, while Sherri and Stacy’s blended vocals invite comparisons to Björk and Leigh Nash. Even on these fresh-from-the-oven tunes, the band were tight and polished, every bit as solid in a suffocatingly hot bar as they are on a professionally produced album. After every song, breathless “thank you”s would come in triplicate from Stacy, Sherri, and guitarist Chauntelle.

The band rejected the traditional encore and played through their last three songs without a break. For “Trolley Wood,” the gospel-tinged finale, Brighten and Simon Dawes joined them on stage to lead the crowd in snapping and clapping along. Eisley would be the first to marvel at how much their devoted fans have done for them in recent years, and it seemed fitting that with the openers sharing the stage with them, it was hard to tell where the band ended and the audience began. For three and a half minutes we were all one snapping, clapping mass, singing about a long-lost forest full of trolleys. When the song ended and all three bands took a collective bow, no one shouted for an encore – the evening was complete.

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