There are pretty men, there are cute men, there are sexy men and then there are the five men in Parcels. When the band played at Portland’s Roseland Theater this past Monday, it transcended the bounds of what an attractive man can be. When I die — well not me per-se, when someone who is going to heaven dies — the clouds will part, the harps will play and there will sit Parcels, beautiful as ever.
We were standing in Roseland’s ballroom for quite some before Parcels made their appearance. To keep the herd of heads from getting all riled up, the venue was bumping some pretty out-of-pocket ambient noise and firing up their fog machine to dance with the lights over the stage. Tactical crowd control. The audience chatted with each other until the lights went down and the chatter turned to cheering. Parcels walked out one by one and formed a straight line off the edge of the stage, each waving like they were some sort of Aussie One Direction knockoff. Usually that sort of entrance would be roastworthy, but damn they looked good doing it.
I could go on and on about how frontman Jules Crommelin is a forever young George Harrison in a wifebeater and a chain, but we already knew that. And sure, bassist Noah Hill is something of a small Robert Plant type crossed with a Valentine’s Day cherub, but that’s no surprise either.
What is a surprise then? Well, I’m glad you asked. No one, and I mean no one, could’ve prepared me for how tight this Australian electro-pop group sounded live. The band’s set of 16 songs was cleaner than Mr. Clean. That crispy edge to Parcels’ sound could be due to the fact that the band has been together basically since they were 13, but then again, U2 has also been an item forever and there’s no one in music I despise more than Bono. All Bono digs aside, Parcels’ harmonies sounded as if Bee Gees and The Chordettes had a baby.
After keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Hetherington hit a crazy coordinated high note with Crommelin and Hill, I heard someone in the crowd say something along the lines of, “It’s like all the kids who hadn’t hit puberty yet in middle school formed a band to try and lose their virginities and somehow it worked.” That’s why I love Portland: comedians and realists everywhere.
The show was clearly a technical success, but that’s the less exciting half of it. The five Parcels had this infectious energy that shook right off of them and into the crowd from the first song to the last song. The band had this enthusiasm to them that Crommelin attributed to the fact that Portland was just the second stop on their North American tour, but their performance had an unusual amount of stamina from every member. They opened with a new song, “Shadow,” that fed straight into the fan favorite “Lightenup,” and everyone was into it. The floor crowd was full of the under 21ers, head bobbing and shoulder shrugging while the balcony was astonishingly enough overtaken by oldheads who, despite their age, were getting down. My photographer even pointed out the lighting director seemed like he was having one hell of a time giving these guys some crazy illuminations to match the gusto of their stage presence.
This is a band you see live. I’m decently underwhelmed making the physical acquaintance of most groups whose records I like, more often than not, production really is king. Then, of course, you get those quality bands who do a bang up job sounding like their records in front of an audience, and I respect that as much as the next guy. But then there’s those artists who absolutely put their whole back into a live show, making their records dull in comparison. Parcels fits into that third category.
This show made for a great Monday night, a better time than I would’ve had doing my week nine homework for sure. Not only that, but Parcels in Portland made for one of the most entertaining shows I’ve seen in quite some time.
