The Clean Tickets

First time at RT. Nicely scaled venue for acts, balcony to escape and bar easily accessible. Although standing 10 feet from stage, which is not quite the sweet spot for sound, the vocals were totally lost. Clean guitar tone from David Kilgore but vocals light and muddied, which is too bad for a band that does a lot of three part harmony among the nice jangle and chugging bass. I have seen shows at the Bell House from this same spot, and sound mix is great. The Clean were great fun but a bit brief. Nice surprise to see Will Butler of Arcade Fire do a set prior to the three nights at Barcley's. Review here is to appraise the new venue, good space, poor sound. Did not advertise the opening acts at all.

Strike one: the opener was a total mismatch disaster who was full of himself and underwhelming.did not catch the guy from arcade fire's set. Strike two: while David Kilgour's guitar playing was blazing, his singing was not. Why, may you ask? He was wasted, so all the catchy numbers were ruined by his atonal mumbling.