PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Michael Bernier and the Uprising

The summer slate at Paradise ended with a bash featuring four up-and-coming New England bands on August 29. Gold Star Morning, Fire In The Field and McAlister Drive set up the gradually inflating crowd, and Michael Bernier & the Uprising knocked them down with a set that felt more like a celebration than a hard-polished recital – natural and jubilant, with plenty of smiles, dancing and no inhibitions within a 12-bar radius.

In essence, it was a coming-out party for the four groups, who have all added new members in the past year. Each band spoke highly of their respective newcomers and seemed to have the glow of a team that has found the one missing piece they were looking for.

Gold Star Morning was already in the midst of their set when I arrived. If someone had told me to guess which man among the five-piece was its newest member, I probably would have guessed wrong – not a one of them seemed out of place. As it turns out, Ben Leang joined the band just nine months ago to perform lead guitar, keyboards, computer sound effects, back-up vocals and whatever else the band tells him to do. Guitarist Luke Rodgers, who started the band with front man Joe McHale, praised Leang’s versatility and said that GSM’s objective in writing its more recent songs has been to take advantage of his many talents. The band does so proficiently on songs like “Best Excuse” and “Start Tonight,” during which Leang adds drama and mystery with echoey keys before launching a devastating guitar solo.

It is those fiery leads that add a welcome snarl to the band’s otherwise pristine brand of alt-pop. Gold Star Morning cites Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay and U2 as chief influences (depending on which band member you ask), and they have melded their tastes brightly enough that they would sound at home on a bill with any of those bands. Like a true pop combo, the band lives on the strength of its hooks, with the chorus giving each song its raison d’etre. With a silky voice that bears a resemblance to that of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, McHale is an ideal match for the players around him, and Rodgers, drummer Craig Blinten and bassist Cory Bean pave the kind of steady road needed for driving rock ballads like “Start Tonight” and “NSA.”

At the moment, the only way to hear full songs by GSM is to check out their live videos on the ‘net. But the band plans to release their debut EP in November (you can hear short clips from the upcoming disc on their myspace page).

The sound that filled the Paradise took on more of a vintage flavor when Fire In The Field lit up the stage. It’s not easy to attract modern audiences with a classic rock sound, but these guys are, at the very least, destined to be a local favorite among fellow musicians and acid rockers for as long as they continue. If you have any taste for the music of like Deep Purple and Funkadelic, you really have no excuse not to catch this band. Fire In The Field layers a foundation designed by 60’s and 70’s hard rock pioneers with just the right amount of leather clad riffs from the stoner metal generation that spawned Fu Manchu, Clutch, Kyuss and the like. The recent addition of keyboardist Andrew Blowen, who fronts another NH-based band called One Hand Free, gives FITF something that every psychedelic rock band covets, a member who can channel the spirit of John Lord with organ swells and warp-speed arpeggios.

The four cavalrymen in FITF (Blowen, guitarist Mike Moore, bassist Jeff Badolato and drummer John Santarelli) got ample time to melt faces with their chops during the set – particularly on the instrumental tour de force “Solidad,” in which Moore and Blowen took turns raging with their respective weapons, and the band, at one point, broke into a spirited jam on the iconic riff from the Frank Zappa’s “Willie the Pimp.” Moore, who founded the band with high school pals Badolato and Santarelli, is truly a sound to behold on the lead guitar for reasons that go beyond his actual playing ability. Most axemen would be thrilled to be able to mimic a signature tone of one classic guitar hero, but Moore seems able to jump between a Ritchie Blackmore strat crunch and a bubbling Hendrix fuzz wah and any other sound he wants, depending on what the song calls for.

Armed with the widest vocal range of any crooner who took the stage that night, frontman James Bagshaw could have easily devoured the entire set himself. But, like his bandmates, he was respectful of the other “voices” around him, stepping aside to let each one to make its statement when the moment came. And it’s not like he didn’t get his time to shine as well. After all, it was Bagshaw’s desperate wails that elevated “Restless” from just another slow song to the kind of stirring blues confessional that makes truckers and bikers shed a single tear before willing it back inside and slashing into the horizon once again… or something like that.

The penultimate set was performed by McAlister Drive, a band that was founded by Christoph Krey while he was an undergrad at Tulane University way back in the mid-aughties. The story goes that Krey’s band was originally named Crown, until Hurricane Katrina came along and, mysteriously, left one stretch of the main road through Tulane virtually undamaged. Last year, when Krey returned home to the bay state and decided to revive his college project with three musicians he had known since high school, it seemed only fitting to name the band after the street that Katrina failed to destroy.

Like the story of their name implies, the music of McAlister Drive honors the more resilient constructs of the past, but looks ahead with the resolve to build anew. The band cites modern-era groups like Silver Sun Pickups, The Black Keys and Maroon 5 among its precursors, and with shimmering chords, sugary harmonies and big, bittersweet hooks, McAlister Drive has a sound tailor-made for 21st Century mainstream radio. But always making ripples below the surface are strokes of the Replacements, Cheap Trick and other power pop masters from decades gone by. The group rolled out a nice gamut of their gifts at the Paradise, drawing swoons from the emo princesses with sentimental soul barers (“Got it Right” seriously could have fallen, disheveled and heartbroken, out of a Gin Blossoms album) and setting hips and hair in motion with balmy, summer night joyrides (Dave Grohl would be thrilled to deliver a melody like the one in the verses of “Drowning”).

With Krey’s biting telecaster distortion and sternum stomping blows at the hands of drummer Scott Wilson, McAlister Drive even found moments to let loose and say “fuck pop, let’s RAWK!” The most balls-out example of this was the atomic Led Zeppelin medley the group detonated to close out their set. Krey left the stage while guitarist Adam Richter led the band through a damned impressive rendition of “Fool in the Rain” and a few other cornerstone riffs before Krey stormed back just in time to belt out “Rock n’ Roll” to the dancing delirium of the parents (grandparents?) in the V.I.P. section.

“It’s the Paradise Rock Club – You’ve got to show ‘em your guitars,” said Krey after the set.

A few other quick notes about McAlister Drive before we move on: The band is working on “Devil’s Ghost,” the follow-up to their debut LP, “Something to Sleep With,” and will play at Harper’s Ferry on October 1; bassist Eric Thachuk joined the band six months ago, which allowed Richter to move from bass to lead guitar. Thachuk’s steady rhythms are a perfect fit for the songs, and having Richter on guitar frees up Krey to switch off between guitar, keyboards and gesticulated vocals, depending on the song. Cycling through the battle stations like that adds a level of unpredictability to the set and seems to accentuate Krey’s natural showmanship, which is a big selling point for the band. Whether you dig the tunes or not, they are a fun group to watch.

Speaking of “fun to watch,” I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there were members of Boston’s deaf community who came out and paid to see Michael Bernier and the Uprising. Whether he was strumming his acoustic while bugging his eyes a country mile out from his head, tapping out tribal grooves on his djembe drum with a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon, or just dancing, barefoot, around the stage, Bernier was impossible to ignore. His overjoyed presence set the tone for both the audience and his bandmates, who laughed and danced like preschoolers at recess whenever they weren’t busy with their instruments.

The Uprising, in their current formation, have yet to release a recording, though they are in the process of making a full-length at Chill House Studios in Charlestown. There are earlier, stripped-down versions of some of the songs they performed on the web (myspace.com/michaelbernier), but judging from those efforts and what was presented at the Paradise, the songs have transformed as the band has grown, incorporating ideas and styles of those that have joined the band. The original core (Michael Bernier on acoustic guitar, his big brother, Ryan on bass and Mark Fiorentini on drums) formed about four years ago, jamming on gospel-tinged reggae and roots rock tunes that Bernier has composed over the last decade. Eventually Brian “Whitewall” Wall joined the group and juiced up the songs with his high-voltage lead guitarwork. Last year, the band welcomed Kate Berlent on saxophone, which Bernier says has “added a classiness and intelligent side” to the Uprising. A little bit of Bob Marley, Adam Duritz and Jack Johnson still emits from the soul of each tune, but the band’s improved vamping capabilities allow the Uprising to incorporate the boisterous elation of the E Street Band, the familial intimacy of the Flecktones and even the prog-rock innovation of the Jeff Beck Group into their sound.

Berlent’s versatility and power on the horn were on full display at the Paradise. On some songs, she and Wall synced up with jazzy melodies in a call-and-response sequence with Bernier’s vocal lines. On the more steady-paced rockers, she unleashed soaring, colossal notes like Clarence Clemons in a little black cocktail dress (and I sincerely apologize for putting that image in your head). Having players with starkly different musical backgrounds goes a long way towards setting the Uprising apart from the other roots/reggae acts led by soulful, shoeless troubadours that pop up from time to time. Berlent is a prime example of this, as is Fiorentini, a confessed metalhead whose frantic fills and sudden pauses lend a cinematic quality to each song. When he changes beats or kicks a song into the chorus, you get the sense that something important (and, possibly, cataclysmic) has happened.

The band’s goofy exuberance belies a somber intensity at the heart of Bernier’s songs – and in his voice. A breathy desperation pours out from virtually every syllable that he sings. His lyrics – which bare an obsessive focus on peace, unity, salvation and other vagabond favorites – and the voice that conveys them are the product of years of travel, songmaking and, presumably, soul searching in remote parts of Costa Rica, the West Indies and the isle of Molokai. Such an up-close and highly personal encounter with a man’s unmasked appetite for redemption and various kinds of love can be jarring, even a little off-putting to those who go to concerts to relax, unwind and punish their eardrums. But you don’t have to be glutton for catharsis to feel like you belong at a Michael Bernier & the Uprising concert. On the contrary, most of the sizeable crowd that squeezed in toward the stage at the Paradise was in attendance to have some drinks, jump around and do everything else that people do at normal rock concerts – and if some of them happened to stumble upon some inner peace in the course of their reveling, then… maybe they win a prize or something (I forgot to ask the band about that). World salvation is a tall order, but one thing Bernier can promise to all in attendance is an ecstatic atmosphere, a max-energy performance and the inner peace of money well spent.

“Everybody here is very positive,” Bernier said after the show. “We all respect each other so much. There are layers on layers of love. We call it organic rock n’ roll. We know it’s a really good time for us, and we try to get that across to everybody.”

Fire in the Field
Gold Star Morning
McAlister Drive
Michael Bernier and the Uprising

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