Little Hurricane | Live review

The crowd around the Kidzapalooza stage doubled during Ralph’s World’s early-afternoon set. Many were no doubt drawn in by the popular, all-ages alter ego of Chicago band the Bad Examples, who delivered a rousing, genre-hopping tour. But others—especially those suspiciously devoid of offspring—were no doubt swinging by to see San Diego duo Little Hurricane while enjoying the shade and free samples of frozen kefir.

The special guests began their surprise setlet strongly, calling to mind what Gossip might sound like if fronted by Chris Martin. (Anthony “Tone” Catalano recalls Martin vocally, quite a bit.) But whether it was too early in the day for their dark, blues-tinged sound—or if they simply weren’t inspired by playing to a crowd that skews down to the recently-graduated-from-diapers demographic—the pair ran through its paces seemingly no different than they would for an adult audience.

Blown-out bass levels and and weak secondary vocals from otherwise solid drummer Celeste “CC” Spina didn’t help. Still, the middle three of five songs settled into a nice groove, whose ingredients included Sleater-Kinney circa The Woods and The B-52s if freshly awakened on the wrong side of the bed.

Little Hurricane blew into Chicago riding no small wave of recent hype. Here’s hoping that their official Lolla outing, tomorrow at 2:05pm at the Google Plus stage, shows them living up to it.