Caradoc Gayer reviews the joyous Nottingham live debut of Nashville indie pop outfit COIN.
It’s a rainy and freezing-cold November evening. I’m walking through Nottingham city centre. Under different circumstances, I’d be pretty depressed by this weather. Luckily, I’m heading to see Nashville band, COIN play their first ever Nottingham gig, and if any band can bring some sunshine to a dark and miserable evening like this one, it would be an indie-pop outfit like them.
I arrive at Rescue Rooms (the venue), and there’s an electric atmosphere. It’s sold out and packed out with younger people, and despite the rain, everyone’s visibly hyped. The turnout’s no surprise, as COIN and their LA-based support band Flor don’t fly to the UK that often. Or, perhaps I’m projecting this reasoning a little bit, as Flor is my favourite band, and I haven’t seen them live since 2019.
After a few minutes of standing in the queue, I meet a lad who’s as excited to see Flor as I am. We find a spot to stand in the crowd, and discuss how Flor recently finished the US tour of their third record Future Shine. The band’s support slot with COIN was announced very last minute, so they must be tired, but they don’t look it when they bound onstage. I’ll take a moment to pretentiously describe Future Shine: it’s Flor at their most most sonically muscular and euphoric. This shines through (pun-intended) via their energetic, and tightly honed live skills. After nailing the complex guitar passages of 24, they get everybody singing during Skate, and later play a heavier rendition of the typically ethereal Hold On. The set is short, concise, dynamic, and particularly funny when frontman Zach Grace ties his shoelace, hydrates himself, and gets encouragement via crowd-chants and accompanying bass drum (Tie your shoe! /Drink your water! times 7).
"The hypnotic, fuzzed-out guitar textures, the angsty lyrics delivered via frontman Chase Lawrence’s effortless falsetto, the way the band all groove onstage: all of these elements create pure serotonin."
Flor’s support slot is unashamedly joyous and exciting. COIN’s headline slot, in comparison, ups the emotionality. It opens with Learning, the electronic intro to their new record: Uncanny Valley. The cathartic lyrics draw everybody’s attention: "I’m ready to jump, I’m coming unplugged, I’m learning to love." Then the band emerge, all guns blazing, to play Watering a Dead Flower, my favourite set opener since I saw Confidence Man play this very venue in the springtime. COIN have described Dead Flower as their homage to shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine. This statement rings clear and true when you see the song live. The hypnotic, fuzzed-out guitar textures, the angsty lyrics delivered via frontman Chase Lawrence’s effortless falsetto, the way the band all groove onstage: all of these elements create pure serotonin.
Next, the band move to a different stylistic bracket, and play Cutie, Chapstick, and I Want it All. These songs evoke the late 80s synth-funk of Prince or Talking Heads. They also highlight Chase's impressive skill as an indie pop frontman. He’s a very expressive guy, captivating to watch, who can look emotional, joyful, or thoughtful, depending upon which song he’s singing. He fluently jumps from synthesizer, to guitar, to mic stand, and back again, and comes across as an infectiously energetic and fun-to-hang-out with dude. After an ambient, piano-led song-outro, he sits at his piano stool and tells us that we all mean a lot to him. I wonder if he often says this to his friends as well. He seems like the type of guy who would.
"The energy levels get so stratospheric, that watching the band move and play becomes an almost hypnotic experience."
There’s certainly no shortage of further band-crowd interactions. After playing the ridiculously catchy Hannah, Chase laughs at a sign reading my name is Hannah. Later, he mentions how he’d never heard of Nottingham, but now it’s his favourite place, cos we go hard over here. Soon afterwards, he introduces the band, remarking "This is a nightmare of mine" as everyone starts chanting his name. An unfortunate person faints in the crowd, and Chase makes sure that they’re carried out okay. It all adds up to become a genuinely feel-good night.
The songs start getting dreamier and melancholier again. During Let it All Out (a synth-led-song in the studio version) the band turn up the guitars, and lead guitarist Joe Memmel harmonises with Chase: "Oh I’ve been waiting for something to change, but I can’t escape this waterfall of doubt. All my blood-sweat and tears, for twenty-some years, all bottled up and broken {cue the whole room screaming the song title}". Next, the energy level decreases during the ambient ballad Malibu 1992, before the band effortlessly build it back up into an explosive synthy apex. Later romantic floor-filler Into My Arms gets everybody jumping on the infectious chorus, "Get out! Get out of my head. Out of my head and into my arms." The energy levels get so stratospheric, that watching the band move and play becomes an almost hypnotic experience.
I’ll finish my account by briefly describing the visuals. They’re based upon the recent album, Uncanny Valley’s themes of technological anxiety. We watch song lyrics depicted like text messages, virtual-reality mountain/meadow landscapes, and TV-static materialise onstage, one after the other. It’s difficult to describe the effect of the imagery and music, without sounding like a stereotypical Pitchfork-writer, but I’ll give it a try anyway. As you watch COIN play, you think about yourself withdrawing into technology and hiding yourself from the world. Some of their songs, however, remind you to rediscover yourself, and emerge out into the world again. In my view, typing sentences like that into your laptop, four days after you’ve seen a live show, is a sign that you’ll remember it for a long time yet. It seems that I found the indie-pop-sunshine I was looking for. I’m going to make sure it follows me around until I see Flor and COIN again.
Caradoc Gayer
Cover and in-article images courtesy of COIN via Facebook.