Port O'Brien @ Fingerprints May.12.08

I slogged through rush hour traffic from Irvine to Long Beach to catch Port O'Brien playing at Fingerprints Record Store to celebrate the All We Could Do is Sing, their first LP self-released, May 13. Port O'Brien draw their sound from a blend of current indie pop rock groups, like Arcade Fire, combined with 1970's folk rock groups, like Neil Young. It is the perfect sound to wake up to in the morning or relax to on lazy afternoon. Although they are California natives, lead vocalist and guitarist, Van Piersalowski pens most of his songs about spending many months on a commercial salmon fishing boat in Alaska. Despite the seemingly lonely themes, Port O'Brien make pop songs encourage movement.

While I had my apprehension, as Fingerprints is great venue for intimate acoustic performance, the CD aisles do not lend themselves to dancing. The crowd was mostly hipsters of the mountain man variety with flannel and long beards. Port O'Brien, with two guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, banjo player just barely fit on to the stage. Port O'Brien began their set with Van on acoustic guitar as they played through their folk rock ballads, like "Fisherman's Son." Between songs Van described the surprisingly humorous situations that could arise on a commercial fishing boat. A few in the crowd may have bobbed their head or tapped their foot, but most were content to stand with their arms crossed. Then in move similar to Dylan at Newport, Van put plugged in his electric guitar and declared they were going to rock out. The whole stage shook beneath there feet as they danced very carefully enough to prevent from knocking any equipment over. For their finale Port O'Brien pulled the crowd closer to the stage, passed out pots and pans and taught the audience the shouting chorus, then launched into their hit "I Woke Up Today." The stoic crowd abruptly changed as everybody was shouting, banging on pots, and dancing. Any time you leave show with big grin and some new friends, it was damn good time.

Video, MP3 and Pics of Port O'Brien from Stereogum here and here.