![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_2633-1024x940.jpg\" "\\"Friends\\"")
<\/a>All of this made them appropriate openers for Brooklyn band-of-the-moment Friends, who will soon embark on a month-long tour opening for Two Door Cinema Club. \u00a0Like Phone Tag, Friends play deceivingly simple indie pop party jams, but there’s a certain depth and skill at work that goes beyond the band’s youthful exuberance.<\/p>\nFriends take ultra catchy jams and infuse them with beats and instrumentation so eclectic it’s hard to pin down any definitive influences. \u00a0Their live shows feature heavy, funky basslines courtesy of a new bassist known as “V” (who in a weird way looks like an avatar from Rock Band), lively synths thanks to Nikki Shapiro, and he percussive efforts of \u00a0Oliver Duncan (on a drumset) and Etienne Pierre Duguay (formerly of Real Estate) on bongos, tambourine, and anything else that will make a sound when you bash, tap, or click it.<\/p>\n
But Friends simply would not be what it is without the incredible vocals and personality of Samatha Urbani, whose aesthetic has informed the band since its inception, when she directed videos for the band’s first and very buzzed about singles, “I’m His Girl” and “Friend Crush”. \u00a0Wearing high-waisted navy blue pants with double rows of gold buttons, a white shirt tied at the waist with gold beadwork cascading down her back and across her shoulders, Urbani was every bit the glamourous frontwoman.<\/p>\n
Her flamboyant-meets-chic style is one thing, but her vocal chops are completely another. \u00a0She drifts back and forth easily between a higher, sweeter coo and lower, more sultry tones delivered with a dose of sass. \u00a0That much was apparent on the band’s debut LP, Manifest!<\/em> released this year. \u00a0But live she’s that much more captivating, peppering her performance with coquettish yelps and squeals reminiscent of Kate Pierson from the B-52’s. \u00a0A\u00a0friend of mine told me that she used to see Urbani perform regularly at karaoke and said that she completely slayed every song, which I not only believe but would have probably paid money to see that alone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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There are certain nights when I wish my favorite venues in Brooklyn, all of which happen to inhabit the same square block of Williamsburg, would just band together and offer three-for-one show deals, or at least build a network of secret tunnels connecting each venue \u00a0to the next – like those elaborate ferret dens you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565,204],"tags":[38,32,240,8,282,281,283,3],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_2595_2-1-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48433,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/48433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_2595_2.jpg\" "\\"Sinkane\\"")
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