Little Brazil live review; Bear Country calling it quits

If you were anywhere but The Sydney last Friday, you missed out on a good show.

OK, yeah... there were probably other fun things going on. But I found myself amid a mob of folks packed into that little Benson bar to see Ideal Cleaners, The Fucking Party and Little Brazil.

Ideal Cleaners rocked, as usual. They're always enjoyable and played a pretty lengthy set, which I was happy about.

The Fucking Party screamed a lot. Honestly, I wasn't really into them and was perfectly OK with the fact that they only played a handful of songs. I think the crowd agreed with me. The near-stage area cleared up and the bar (at the other end of the room) suddenly got busy.

As for Little Brazil, they kicked things off with seven brand new songs. I thought the melody and the music were driving the songs more than the vocals, which is what I thought the case was most of the time on the band's fantastic 2009 album "Son."

Meg Morgan (drummer Oliver Morgan's wife) filled out the lineup on keyboards from early in the set. Some people took it as big news of some kind, but it's really no surprise. The band's music has evolved from punk to indie rock and the keys/piano/organ just fleshes out that sound.

Hell, "Son" had its fair share of keyboards on it and songs like "Brighton Beach" sounded fantastic live with Morgan there to play her parts.

But, rest assured the keyboards aren't taking center stage. The songs are still dominated by Greg Edds and Landon Hedges' guitars. Morgan just fills out the melody.

I'm excited to see where these new songs take them. They haven't started recording yet, but a trip to ARC should be coming soon.

Looking forward to it.

* * *

Almost forgot to mention, the whole shindig was a party to launch HearNebraska.org. If you haven't been there yet, get to it. Seriously, where have you been?

* * *

Bear Country is shutting down.

I loved the band's latest effort, "Frozen Lake." It's fraught with simple melodies, very folky, but one of the prettier albums I've heard in a long time. I still can't get enough of "Coolie Trade," the first song on the album.

Alas, the band's last show ever will be at the Sandbox on Feb. 18 19, according to this Facebook event post.

But fret not. According to Slumber Party Records, "we’ll be seeing these guys around with something new very soon."

Happy to hear it.