Frog Debut ‘Frog For Sale’ Live at Elsewhere Brooklyn
Sometimes a man in a polo shirt impresses me. Rarely, but sometimes. This was one of those times.
FROG
Seeing Frog live at Elsewhere on April 17 was an easy experience, to put it simply. Three men ambled out onto the main stage, clad in Adidas sneakers and charming smiles. They helped the back of house set up their instruments and sipped their beers with backyard barbecue nonchalance. They smiled toward the crowd, then each other and back again. Sometimes you are reminded that the art, the music, we create is a reflective manifestation of ourselves. This was one of those times.
Live, the three-piece-band was silly, emotive, and sonically comparable to their prerecorded work. Worked into the performance was a very legitimate and tangible excitement— Frog For Sale, the band’s latest album, had released the same day. The boys performed a good number of songs off the collection in jaunty novelty which was encouraged ferociously by the crowd. For music with a lifespan of less than 12 hours, a large percentage of the crowd was singing every word.
Ah the crowd, the co-host of live shows, the other half of the “best friends” necklace alongside the music itself. The crowd at Elsewhere on that Friday night was a fully invested music-listening machine. Dressed in beads and lace and tie dye shirts, onlookers bore a resemblance to audiences of the Grateful Dead, though in Brooklyn, so picture more patchwork tattoos and miniskirts.
Blatantly, there was a kind of intimacy which spilled out of onlookers and onto the stage for the boys in the band to receive gingerly and share back outwards. As each new song reared up with beginning guitar notes and deep inhalation, the crowd seemed to sigh back in knowingness of what was to come. Rather than bodies on bodies of individuals, Frog’s audience was one sentient being that, for a couple hours, I got to be part of.
The openers too were reflective of this intimacy.
DJ SILKY SMOOTH
First up was Brooklyn based DJ Silky Smooth “band not dj”. The five piece ensemble put on a show that was melodic and chill, presenting a very nostalgic mid-pandemic Indie sound: low production costs and high creativity. I’d sit in a hammock on a reflective spring day and listen to this group.
OLIVIA O
Second opener Olivia O was also a sonically adjacent and complimentative of Frog. Like the two other groups, her noise was mellow and nostalgic, though embraced ambient sounds in a uniquely intentional way. Accompanying the musician on stage was a masked figure who held signs with pensive statements and questions such as, “Who do you trust?”
More than anything else, the Frog show felt like seeing a friend set up on stage in someone’s backyard.
Despite the un-casualness of everything that tends to happen in New York City, seeing the band live was familiar, inviting, and exciting: an ode to indie folk and feeling good.
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