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The start of something big: Castledoor's Monday night residency at Spaceland
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Photo courtesy of Spaceland
Nursing a tall drink next to the Spaceland stage, one may suddenly have the overwhelming sense of standing inside Disneyland’s Space Mountain, if disco trannies had been the ride designers. Familiar silver scaffolds line the ceiling, strung every 10 inches with lights, while the room is draped in glittering blue curtains accented with gold. On the perimeter, by each bar, classic arcade games (including Space Invaders) are being played with local hipsters’ last few quarters.
Spaceland is a Silver Lake staple. It embodies the place. Each night, a hip, young conglomeration of pixie cuts, skinny jeans, thick-rimmed glasses and ironic facial hair fills the audience, and a band with talent much bigger than its name takes the stage. This June, that band is Castledoor, a local indie-pop-rock group that has an earnest energy and sharp, dynamic sound like no other. At last night’s show (the third of the band’s Monday-night residency), Spaceland’s audience was privy to the rumblings of an explosive career.
Castledoor plays the happiest music that Spaceland has ever heard. Their performance turns any stage into a dance floor. Frontman Nate Cole jumps and jives to his music’s tempo allegro, his hands either waving wildly in the air like a magician's or roped around one of his five bandmates – each of whom are incessantly nodding, and clapping whenever their own hands have the time. Castledoor is almost reminiscent of the Brady Bunch, if the Brady Bunch were dunked in funk, soul and Ecstasy. Onstage, Cole’s empowered yet boyish voice runs like a tributary into his band's river of instruments, including standard guitars and drums as well as keys, synth and soprano xylophone.
Last night, Castledoor performed fan favorites, “Dumpster Diving” and “Skipping Stepping Stones,” and slipped into some surprise covers that sent female audience members over the moon.
“This one’s for the honeys,” Nate said, before jumping into James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World.” And a few songs later, smack in the middle of their lively love song, “Magnetic Forces,” the token guitar progression of “Pretty Woman” emerged from out of nowhere. Seamlessly, the band tore into the classic, relying on the audience for the final choruses (before breaking it down to hand claps). Then, after a pause – and a rambunctious drum re-introduction – they closed out of it with the punctuated final verses of their original tune.
“Mind-blowing” would be a good way to describe the performance. And “ecstatic” would be a good way to describe the audience.
The other love song that Castledoor performed last night was “Fifth Tambourine.” In this one, the band describes a metaphor of wanting to harmonize with another person, singing, “I would travel in your band, playing the fifth tambourine … I want to live inside your song.” This is exactly how bopping show-goers felt. The band’s live show transcends a pure earnestness and joy, ultimately giving the audience a hypnotic cure-all for every Monday in June. And has it been mentioned that the show is free? Someone call up the President. I think we’ve found the answer to the Recession.
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