supercade 2: (from left to right): Michelle, Dave, Tony, and DevonThough Virginia appears to be far away from Washington -- or rather, from Washingtonians -- a recent trip to Clarendon was more than worth the effort.
The venue at hand was the Iota club, and the occasion was none other than a brilliant no-cover acoustic night that takes place on Wednesdays. Though that is a gem in itself, so was the feature band, Supercade.
While we have covered the band before, they proved themselves once more to be a diamond in the rough and deserve being heard, even acoustically.
Iota Club is laid out in such a way that an acoustic evening comes naturally to the place, like spicy Thai food with Thai beer. In fact, the stage was lit up in Christmas lights that bore resemblance to the insides of any given Thai restaurant, and lit the band up as they got in place to give the audience an acoustic rendition of a few select songs from their repertoire.
Tony (guitar) was strumming away to his own tune, Michelle (drums, or drum in this case) patiently smacked her one drum to give the songs a bit of center and since Dave’s acoustic bass seized to function -- something about a $99 deal on eBay that did not quite pan out -- he stuck with a hollow-bodied bass guitar that showed off his skills without taking any attention away from Devon’s singing and the stripped-down atmosphere of the evening.
The focus centered on Devon (vocals) and the lyrics. The band played a range of songs, some on their EP, some I had heard at a previous concert, and one that had no name. The song was introduced by Devon as, “this song might be called ‘Any Day Now.’”
Devon’s vocals got enough space to fill the whole venue, and her lyrics gave pause to the previously chatting crowd. The band displayed an enjoyable quality that stays with you because they have gelled together and produce a sound that can be mournful and catchy at the same time.
In fact, “Any Other Day” was one earworm that continues to afflict me to this day. Damn you, Supercade!
While the acoustic night and the stripped-down set list left the band naked, they looked good. And they sounded even better.
