@ 10:15 Bows and Arrows took the stage to play to the entering crowd, which was still less than half capacity by the time they closed their set. Though most peoples converse stayed glued to the floor, Bows tried to keep the crowd moving, bouncing around as much as was allowed by the constrictive stage. Sounding like a pop/rock group to the specs of the genre, Bows continued to work out the kinks throughout their short set, giving the feeling that their live performances are still a learning experience.

Mother Father tore into their set with an intensity that brought the crowd in from their cigarette breaks. Mother Father pulled out all the stops, playing for the less than 200 people crowd as if they were the headliner of a 70000 person festival. The time and effort paid to craft the songs could be felt throughout the set. Each song came across as its own, showing that Mother Father showed attention to not duplicating themselves over and over again. Singer Dave Gahan soloed into the final song backed by reverberating chords. At this point Mother Fathercould’ve taken the crowd in any direction, but ended the set with a bang, which was hard to believe considering the amazing set they’d just run through.

Coming to the stage quietly Zaza floated into their set, blending each song into the next in a way that was reminiscent of the first half of Deerhunter’s Cryptograms album. Zaza‘s flowing set seemed to hypnotize the crowd. Kurt’s minimal drum set provided a great trail for bassist Jenny to give the band the low end of their down tempo groove. The Ends nominal light show was toned down even more for Zaza‘s set. With only two lights Zaza chose not to put on a visual spectacle instead opting to let the music speak for itself.

Sounding as crisp as any band performing this night, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart went the opposite direction of Zaza, giving the fans as much of a spectacle as possible in the small capacity venue. As The Pains broke into ‘Come Saturday’, the fans still posted in the back detached themselves from the walls and bar to join the crowd at the main stage. Playing an escalating set of songs from their debut album The Pains kept the crowd in anticipation of what was to come, building the energy with each song. Between songs singer Kip Berman paid homage to ‘Mother Father’, saying he was siked to play with them in Nashville, generating a round of applause from the mostly Vanderbilt student crowd. Behind a Nord Lead synth, Keyboardist Peggy Wang brought the noise part of the noise-pop act, but failed to live up to the backing vocals found on the album. Taking a short break to change guitars, Peggy told jokes before closing the set with an amped up version of ‘Everything With You’. After getting a taste of Brooklyn’s noise pop from The Pains, Nashville locals were left with an appetite for more.

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