by l.a.maher
It’s Friday. Your friend posts live footage of a wicked pisser function on her Snapchat story. Shamefully, you set your pride aside, get on your knees and grovel for the address in an act that feels dangerously close to bowing and kissing her Bitmoji’s now 3-dimensional feet.
The time? 9:34 pm. The place? North Willard. A celebration of? Peace, love, and happiness. You gasp for breath with a Track House bronchitis cough as you bike over to catch the set’s end. People stare as you lock up your hot set of wheels at a picket fence in the yard because you, undoubtedly, arrive looking maliciously sexy.
Two beanie-bearing gentlemen greet you at the side gate. Do you have Venmo? $5 entry fee. Only five clams for the most feral gig of your entire life?? Hell, you’d give up your position as Dave Jennemann’s private footman at the Honors College to infiltrate this bitch. An iPhone flashlight blinds you, revealing a single sheet of computer paper lazily taped to the dusty clapboard of the house where the Venmo handle in question was scrawled with a dying Sharpie.
Once the tithe is paid you round the corner into the Babylon of backyards.
The grooviest of all licks seductively tickles your eardrums. Reminiscent of The Dead? Absolutely. A poor imitation of The Strokes? No chance. It immediately becomes clear after stepping foot onto the Yerb-littered lawn that you are in the presence of Burlington’s hottest item.
You almost think you’ve stepped through a rip in the fabric of time to a backyard jam in the year 1976. A tapestry so psychedelic that it could’ve confused Jim Morrison into sobriety hangs behind the band as they rock one out. The scene laid out before you could easily pass for the shooting of an episode of Outer Banks Season 3, the crowd so thick it is absolutely ripe for John B and JJ to tear through as they evade law enforcement.
The band is situated directly on top of a firepit. Fuck patio architecture. People push and tear their way to the front. The crowd is so enthralled that they are practically breathing down the players’ necks, daring to get as close as humanly possible to who they now perceive as God. The keyboard player struggles for arm mobility as fans stand behind him, mesmerized and objectively way too close.
Their sound? Completely unique to the DIY scene. Imagine if 311’s classic crack-infused hit “Amber” occupied the bodies of human people and became a band. Their vibrational aura rings out early 2000’s Abercrombie surfer-boys-meet-basement-era-70’s -legends like The Eagles, Beach Boys, and, dare you say it? Pink Floyd in their early days. If Lazy Bird were to release a vinyl LP, it would no doubt be an epic soundtrack to a smoke circle gathering in Eric Foreman’s basement.
People fight tooth and nail for space on the stairs climbing the back of the house to get a bird’s eye view of the Birds. An indie soldier hangs by one finger, dangling from the banister like a limp puppet. According to eyewitness reports, one poor soul broke and subsequently fell from a tree branch trying to get a better view, an iconic blunder reminiscent of the antics at Woodstock ‘69.
Needless to say, the almost-death marks one success of many more to come for Burlyworld’s newest wizards of sound.
[You can, and should, follow Lazy Bird on the ‘gram @lazybirdband].