Max Tundra's one-man charm outperforms Junior Boys

I didn't know a lot about Max Tundra before I saw him at The Canopy Club in Urbana, Monday night.

And to be fair, when he started his set, I wasn't that impressed. It was just another guy with a lot of electronics, layering sounds and instruments. I have seen way too many of these kind of performances, and they bore me to death. No matter how awesome the music is, it's not always interesting to watch an electronica performer make the music.

But then he started dancing, and it made it worth it to me. Instead of taking it all seriously, Tundra (real name Ben Jacobs) knew he was kind of a schlub, and he embraced it. He flailed, jumped up and down and just had a good time.

Even with a small audience, he didn't care. Tundra's odds of winning people over were small, but he did it.

A big part of it was that the music got more interesting as his set went on, which was a combination of electronic, orchestral and power pop. And all this was done by one man, looping and picking away (and dancing. Oh the dancing).

Tundra closed his set with a weird/intriguing cover of "So Long, Farewell" from the musical The Sound of Music. While played with a lot of electronic flourishes and synthesizers, it stayed remarkably faithful to the original.

But then he started flailing his arms and dancing, and it made the all the better for it.

While Tundra's set grew on me, Junior Boys' set never really took off. Maybe it was the small crowd (I don't think so, they seemed to enjoy that), maybe it was that they took breaks between songs (if a dance band wants an audience to keep moving, they need to keep playing), or maybe it was that I had too high of expectations (dance bands usually impress me), but the show did not catch fire like I thought it would.

I have rather enjoyed what I have heard from their new album Begone Dull Care, but the arrangements barely deviated from the album versions, and even with the addition of a live drummer, there wasn't much more to it. That "oomph" wasn't there.

There were a couple of exceptions, most notably the song "In the Morning." The band just seemed to get a little more excited, and tried to reach beyond what they already knew the song would be.

More often than not though, Junior Boys didn't reach that far.

Note: Photos will be up soon.