What's Up! Magazine

Pan Pan brings the instrumental goods at Western’s Performing Arts Center. Photo by Paul Israel

I enjoy most local bands but have my particular tastes and Pan Pan definitely fills me up whole. Like a well-rounded espresso, I just want more. So having them open for one of my top 20 favorite bands, The Books, at the PAC, was like an early Christmas present. This is the most excited I had been for a show in a while.

When Sarah Jerns wants to make a good impression she knows how to bring on the heavy artillery. Her favorite tactic seems to be starting the show from behind the crowd and having a nearly 20-piece band work their way to the front as they play the opening song. That’s exactly what she did opening for The Books and it’s an obvious move because it delights and surprises.

I’ve seen Pan Pan quite a few of times in different venues and seeing them play at the PAC brought the songs to a whole new level. The clarity and natural dynamics of their music really came through, thanks to proper engineering and of course great songwriting. Pan Pan remained structured by just playing their music and didn’t have a whole lot of chatter in between songs. Doing that, they masterfully transitioned from song to song with little breaks for applause, which drew the crowd in to the performance. The best thing to me about Pan Pan’s performance is that they kept it personal in such a large venue just by playing their music. Opening for The Books at the PAC is a great opportunity and Pan Pan came through managing to impress and wow the audience. High fives to Pan Pan.

Watching The Books was especially exciting because I was curious on how they’d pull off their music with only two people. They came out to the front of the stage, sat down next to each other, said a polite hello, and started playing. The Books aren’t a grandiose band in the way they look and show off their music, but they present their music in a brilliant bundle of sound and video. It’s the quality of the package and the overall feel that really makes a lasting impression with The Books. Within the first few notes it became clear these guys are remarkable instrumentalists. Seeing how they actually played the songs I had heard on record was completely satisfying and enlightening.

Their videos were often old footage and mainly consisted of people. Their trick was the way they edited or superimposed the original footage on other footage to create sometimes oddly humorous videos. My favorite was a song called “8 Frame,” in which they consistently used one second of footage (8 frames a second) with different scenarios. Repeating each a handful of times before going on to the next “8 Frame.” With this jerky type of video exemplifying the tempo of the song there became a symbiosis of sight and sound, this multimedia being the consistent theme for their show.

The Books played just long enough and chuckled with us as they came out for their encore commenting that encores are “such a strange tradition’.”

This whole experience had me leaving with a really good feeling like walking away from a fantastic movie that moved you. Needless to say, I’ll be first in line to go see any of these all-star bands again.