Fruit Bats / Nik Freitas
Bottom of the Hill
June 9, 2003

Review by Jake Thomas

It was a very mellow Monday evening at the Bottom of the Hill. When I walked in Nik Freitas was already into his set. Being a skateboarder, I knew of this guy from his photographs in the magazines. I've heard his CD once before in a friends car, and thought it sounded pretty good; and I felt the same about the show - nothing amazing, but entertaining and a good choice as opener for the Fruit Bats. As I sit here trying to rack my brain as to what he sounds like, I just keep coming up with troubadour indie rock. His record is on Future Farmer, and if you're at all familiar with that label let me say that his album fits in perfectly there. There are elements of For Stars (who he apparently plays with sometimes),
Grandaddy, and even M Ward, who is also on the same label. Most of the tunes are driven by his voice and his keyboard, but he had ample backing from some other musicians resulting in a very full sound that I can only imagine catching on with the kids once they get a good ear full of him.

I'm a late comer on the Fruit Bats bandwagon, at least among my group of friends. I've been told tolisten to them for a while now, and I always put it off. Now I'm kicking my self for it. Their new album 'Mouthfuls' is one of my favorite records so far this year, and I've been listening to it fairly obsessively over the last couple of months. Needless to say I was pretty hyped for this show, and was not disappointed. They played most of 'Mouthfuls' including a fantastic rendition of 'When You Love Somebody', my favorite song of the record. They also played a handful of their older songs, and although I'm not familiar with them yet, they were great and I plan to make myself more familiar with them next time I make it to the music shop. This I was a fine evening of mellow music and I couldn't have asked for more on an easy going Monday evening.

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View Fruit Bats photos from their previous show:

April 26, 2002 @ Great American Music Hall



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