Review: Louden Swain leaves fans exhilarated

Rock band plays gig in Austin for first time

In between their usual concerts at Supernatural Conventions, rock band Louden Swain, with lead singer Rob Benedict, guitarist Billy Moran, bassist Michael Borja and drummer Stephen Norton, played two sets at The North Door for its first gig in Austin. The first show started at 7 p.m. and ended at 9 p.m. with time in the beginning and end for the audience to settle and mingle amongst themselves. Although the venue was smaller than others, there was still enough room to move around. There was a loft with a lounge area where people could relax and still appreciate the music.

Around 7:30 p.m., the band made its way up on stage. The now bunched together crowd cheered for them as they started their first song, “Present Time,” which was an excellent song to begin with. The fourth song, “Pop Tart Heart,” was a high energy track where Benedict started to have guitar trouble but was quickly fixed. The next song, “Juliet,” was another performance with high energy and featured an outstanding guitar solo from Moran. By starting the night off with upbeat tunes, the crowd was hyped for the rest of the set.

In late October of last year, Louden Swain released an acoustic album, “Splitting the Seams,” with reimagined tracks of past songs and a few new ones. They changed their electric guitars for acoustic for the third song, “CA Nation,” which is a song about the state the band calls home but was not born in. Also from the acoustic album, they played “Ready Steady,” a slower, ballad-like track about having a crush on somebody you shouldn’t have a crush on.

Marissa Redding

They put away the majority of the acoustics for “Silverspoon” where Borja played both the bass and keyboard. He had a one-note piano solo at the end before the next song, “Too Far Away.” This slow, emotional song was introduced with a speech from Benedict who said, “You are our friends and you are our family and we’re really grateful for you being here so, thank you.” “Too Far Away” is an extremely personal song for the band because it was written just last year and holds stronger memories than past songs. To him, “writing these songs is sometimes like speaking your diary out loud and it can be terrifying.” The way Benedict isn’t afraid of showing his vulnerable side to the audience showcases the relationship between him and the fans.

In 2006, Louden Swain released “Here Come the Snakes” for the thriller, “Snakes on a Plane.” Benedict said they “buried it with that movie then it recently got resurrected like a phoenix from the ashes as we realized people want to hear songs about snakes on planes.” The upbeat sound kept the high energy of the crowd as they started playing “Taxi Driver.”

According to Benedict, the main emotional song of the night, “Leg Up”  is a song about “telling yourself it’s OK, because the person that needs to tell yourself that is you and people can say, ‘it’s going to be okay, man,’ but only you can believe it.” As the track plays, the audience can feel and see the emotional ties coming from Benedict where they can feel the truth in his words.

After playing higher energy tracks, such as “Cast Off,” “Prom” and “This is How,” they added “Medicated” as their last song of the night. They originally planned on playing “Medicated” at the end of the second set but decided to play it for the early show. Because the majority of their fans are aware of the Supernatural Conventions, the audience knew to bring kazoos for this song because there is a kazoo solo in the middle. When the majority of the audience whipped out their colorful musical instruments, the band was pleasantly surprised and clapped after the fans were done.

With fans from all over the globe, Louden Swain performed an exhilarating concert. Although the venue was a little crowded after the show and there were a couple of technical difficulties, they still had wonderful acoustics and vocals. Their engagement with the crowd added a home-like feeling to the overall show and fans can’t wait for them to come back.