Kevin Bronson on April 13th, 2013

2

Who: The Neighbourhood at the Outdoor Theatre
In 3 or Fewer Words: Ain’t sweater weather.
Memorable Because: The young Newbury Park quintet took the stage to a Drake song: “Started from the bottom / and now I’m here …” Yes, the Neighbourhood is here, with plenty of swagger for a young quintet from Newbury Park. The band, for instance, requested that all published images of their Coachella performance be in black and white to fit with their chosen aesthetic. Maybe after that second album, lads. Thing is, Friday’s set led you to believe there will be a second album, and a third. The Neighbourhood’s charismatic, honey-voiced and heavily tatted front man Jesse Rutherford darted through a too-short 28 minutes of songs from the band’s forthcoming debut “I Love You” (due April 23), did a bit of crowd-surfing and in general continued to connect the dots between his hip-hop past and crooner future. It helped that the Neighbourhood seemed to bring half of southeastern Ventura County with them – “There’s way too many homies here,” Rutherford said – but having gotten their big break on U.K. radio, the fivesome is more than a local phenomenon. In living color.
What I’d Tell My Friends Who Were at Deathfix: Fugazi it wasn’t.
– K.B. (Photos by Bronson)