Last week, I had the opportunity to both hear some of the upcoming new record from Aussie electropop five-piece PARCELS at an intimate gathering up near Los Feliz, and then see them perform live to a sold-out house at the Fox Theater in Pomona the very next day.
We got to hear about a half-dozen tracks from their upcoming new record due out this September in a small living room of folded chairs on Tuesday night. It felt a little odd to listen to their music in a seated position, because anytime I’ve listened to PARCELS I am moving my feet. The rhythmic nature of their music forces you to dance, so sitting silently amongst a group of people felt a little odd. Still, all the new material managed to hit, and you really got to feel the build of each track and savor each of the vocal harmonies. When it was over, the band talked about the process of recording it, which included jumping around a couple of different studios before recording about 80 percent of it back in their native Australia.
When asked about their recent touring, they said it didn’t really start to feel good until their first Coachella performance the previous weekend. I asked keyboardist and guitarist Patrick Hetherington what it’s like being a word-of-mouth band, as I myself heard about them through a friend who had seen them live, and have since told many friends about how good they are live. He mentioned how cool it is given the band doesn’t have a massive hit in their catalogue that would’ve brought a following, that it’s been a nice gradual build over the years.
The listening event turned into a pretty dope party of about 150 people or so afterwards with the band members spinning some tunes. It was a very vibey Tuesday night for sure.
Flash forward about 24 hours later and they were playing to a sold-out Fox Theater in Pomona. After arriving right at the time they went on stage, my friend Monica and I opted to enjoy it from the balcony so we could have an actual view of the stage. PARCELS is the kind of band that was able to get the entire balcony onto their feet for the majority of the show, which is no small feat, particularly in southern California where people can be too cool sometimes.
They wasted no time getting into things by playing one of their signature tunes “Overnight” to open the show. Immediately everyone was on their feet and dancing. I love these guys’ records, but seeing them live is a whole other ballgame. While sometimes the tracks on their records can end sort of abruptly, in a live setting they tend to add some really jammy breakdowns to the end of them to really fill them out. Later on in the set they played the outro to “Overnight” that was a huge dance party.
They played a couple of the songs from the new record, which included “yougotmefeeling,” which hit even better live. A couple of songs they said were unreleased and not part of the new album were also played. Overall, it was a very cohesive show except I wish they didn’t play so many slower jams in a row towards the end.
It was an eclectic crowd that turned up for PARCELS on Thursday. The kind of crowd where you just know that everyone has a top five favorite NPR Tiny Desk sets (it’s Freddie Gibbs and Madlib or Anderson Paak for me!). Hoping they come back around to LA proper when the new album drops because I am not missing them for the world.
