THE GARDEN LIVE AT KNITTING FACTORY

As fans of all ages descended upon the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on Saturday night, twin brothers Wyatt and Fletcher Shears, better known as The Garden, prepared for a show that nobody would walk away bored from. Formed in California in 2011, The Garden are fast becoming known for their abstract and, at some points, bizarre performances and alternative and erratic musical style, and you get a sense that each performance is unplanned and totally different from any other.

Opening the show with the first of many heavy, fast paced and manic numbers, the tone for the evening has already been set well within the first few bars. The brothers shout, make rapid darting movements around the stage, jump off the walls and even throw in a few cartwheels during the night. The whole performance undoubtedly is like nothing any of the audience have ever seen, but they all the while they are absolutely lapping it up. Performing songs from their latest release, U Want the Scoop? (2017) including riotous new single, “Clay”, it’s clear that if there’s one thing The Garden know how to do, it is to captivate and hold a crowd.

To describe their musical style is a tricky feat, as they don’t seem to be pinned down to one specific genre. Their albums and EP’s display an eclectic mix of punk-rock, electro-punk, hip hop, rap, classic rock and drum and bass. It sounds absurd on paper, but hearing their creations live does bring it all together so that it kind of makes sense. Their unwillingness to conform to one genre brings a huge level of spontaneity and uncertainty to the show. In the space of two songs, the brothers could go from beating their drums, wildly strumming the bass guitar and twirling microphones akin to classic rock giants The Who, and rapping over a heavy bassline which could compete with any modern rapper.

The show comes to an end when the encore is met with a stage invasion to end them all. As roughly 20 fans jump up onto the small stage, it is impossible to even see the brothers whilst they strum out the final few chords

[ + ] THE GARDEN

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