Lohio, Karate Coyote, The Randys - Rumba

In the middle of Lohio’s set at the Rumba Café on Friday night, lead singer Greg Dutton led the band through a song called “You’ve Got a Lot of Nerve,” during which he repeated this sentiment several times: “I can tell you’ve got some things to learn.” Each time I heard it, I couldn’t help thinking of that adage about the pot and the kettle.

Lohio has much to learn. The Pittsburgh fivesome is pleasant enough on record, merging the squeaky-clean indie pop of bands like Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin with intermittent doses of introspective folk-pop. But onstage it was all quite bland—not awful, by any means, and certainly not devoid of talent. There just wasn’t anything the least bit distinctive in the performance to set the group apart from countless other bands charting a similar course. Lohio is so safe that it’s entirely unremarkable.

The band was at its worst during the slower, more folk-leaning songs, which highlighted the weaknesses in Dutton’s voice as he sang in a low, unconfident register. The band was at its best during more upbeat songs like “Modern Days,” adding some much-needed energy to the performance. But regardless of range or tempo, Dutton was pretty much devoid of charisma, which enervated even some of the band’s bounciest songs.

A bad mix could have been part of the problem here. Dutton’s voice was always soft, and the bassist’s harmonies (I assume?) were inaudible. But here’s the bottom line: There are some bands that can convincingly and engagingly pull off a song with a chorus that consists only of “Hangin’ out with you.” This was not one of those bands.

Despite having shared the stage with bands like the Avett Brothers and American Music Club, Lohio looked and sounded bush-league. And it seemed even more bush-league following the Rumba’s early-show act, the Randys, which kept a shoulder-to-shoulder happy-hour crowd dancing and grinning.

The Randys are actually the perfect happy-hour band, despite the fact that you might not recognize a hefty chunk of the songs they cover from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. No matter. The band has a way of resurrecting genres you may have mentally discarded (e.g. polka). On Friday, the band even strung together five or six Hawaiian tunes with spot-on harmonies, ukulele and lap steel guitar. Quite impressive.

The Randys manage to do what so many cover bands (a misleading label) can’t: that is, conveying authenticity for whatever period they tackle while also allowing the songs to be influenced and strengthened by their own musical histories and attributes.

Karate Coyote closed down the night on some high and low notes. With only one EP out (Move E.P.), the young band made the odd decision to start the show with old and new songs that aren’t on it, none of which I was particularly fond of.

Sound problems didn’t help here, either. The second guitarist was lost in the mix, and despite having the strongest pipes of the indie-pop collective, female vocalist Sam Corlett was barely audible. Even so, I much preferred the songs she led to guitarist Ryan Horn’s tunes.

I was happier once “Move Yourself,” the strongest EP track, came along. “So Far So Good,” a song CD101 has been pimping, sounded pretty good, too, as did “Incogneat-o.” But the band has some more work to do before its stage show does justice to its recorded material.

(Also at The Other Paper)