If you were to die tomorrow, who would orchestrate the soundtrack of your life? Everyday, we walk, trip or run through the days of our lives. For each day we experience, a song usually sums up perfectly what kind of day we’ve had. Got lucky last night? “Let’s get it on.” Heart broken? “Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin’s version is my goto here, but check out the Alabama Shakes).” Pissed? “Killing in the Name.” Whatever life throws your way, music is the force that gets us through.
Now, it’s easy to cherry pick a choice song here and dope song there, but seeing an Other Lives’s show is equivalent to seeing your entire life happening right before your eyes…peaks, rivers, valleys, the whole fucking nine. And last night, our very own lives were being presented right back to us in epic form at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Other Lives played, “As I Lay My Head Down,” early in the set, prepping the audience for a musical journey they’d soon not forget. Mixing reflective lyrics like “Look at the years going by,” with the melodies that seek up images of the pioneer days, Other Lives takes the film of your life, and turns it into a rock opera version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
I shit you not, they are solid shit. The climax of my musical life, came in the middle of the set during “Take Us Alive,” off their new EP Mind the Gap. Already having the crowd in a trance like state, they start the song with dramatic violin play, followed by big bangs of the drums, as they ease into a piano arrangement lasting the entire song while consistently repeating “they’ll never take us alive.” And for four plus minutes, your life story is out running the world. They are parts Bon Iver, Coldplay and Ra Ra Riot meets the wild wild west…except not too wild. But through and through, you feel like you’re floating through the best, most beautiful dreams you’ve ever imagined, en route to some type of everlasting glorious sunset. Heaven? Sure as hell feels like it at times.
And if it is really heaven, I’m certainly down for more. Seeing them earlier this year at Coachella , didn’t do them justice. The Darrell Thorp produced group (Radiohead, Beck, Outkast), is best seen in an intimate setting. One where their instrumentation truly shines through. Themes of the West are continually found in their words and harmonies, and you can’t help but feel like Butch and Sundance during showtime…feeling like anything is possible. Yeah, I want more.
Writer | Rene Ramirez
Photographer | Katie Henry
