A&E
Sea Wolf fights cold, plays hopeful set in latest CAB Coffeehouse
By Liz Lvov ’17
March 10, 2016
Tags a+e
Because the tantalizingly titled “I Heart Female Orgasm” event was happening just down the hall at the same time, fewer people than usual initially showed up at Thursday night’s CAB Coffeehouse. Those who did, however, were rewarded with the usual tasty Opus beverages and platters of cookies that kept magically regenerating as the night progressed, and eventually the audience expanded to its customary people-even-in-the-balcony attendance. Even though the event was scheduled for 7:30 p.m., a lack of an opener meant that the music actually started at roughly 8:07 p.m., after a raffle yielded the usual excitements and disappointments.
Sea Wolf shuffled onto the stage and proceeded to ignore the crowd (the long-waiting crowd, the hyped up on chai lattes crowd) to tune their respective instruments. The woman at the keyboard, with long dark hair and fringe, was efficient and almost immediately set up. The bass guitarist, dark hair slicked back, was ready to go fairly soon, and exuded a bright energy as he smiled jauntily at the crowd. The lead singer, however, seemed to be handling a guitar for the first time, a judgment purely based on his extremely befuddled reaction to said instrument. After a painful struggle with the strings wherein the crowd, anxiously quiet, began to break out in tiny whispers, the lead singer abruptly leaned in to the mic and grunted a “hey” that caused me to immediately flash back to my overly-talented 10th grade boyfriend who loved to play guitar but seemed incapable of asking how my day was. The audience, unsure how to react to this sudden greeting, nervously tittered. We all felt perversely flattered at the ever-so-brief attention of a handsome musical man who had not, up to that point, deigned to notice us. The lead singer, immune to our bashful confusion, had already launched into the song and the bass and the keyboard kept up wonderfully.
As the set progressed, there was a barely perceptible sense that something was a bit off. The lead guitarist would occasionally miss notes and be slightly off-beat, and finally he muttered into the mic something about having a cold. Eventually it became abundantly clear that not only was the lead singer in fact quite sick with the cold that seems to be plaguing our campus as we speak (was he, in fact, the source?) but was also experiencing the sonorous effect of Nyquil (that temptress, that green dragon). In fact, the lead singer was initially so mono-syllabic and fumble-fingered with his guitar not out of rudeness but rather from sickness and a chemically-induced desire to sleep.
However, when this finally came into the open, there was a tangible sense of relief. We all felt that we were finally being honest with each other. The lead singer and the bass guitarist laughed and bantered with the crowd about it, and we all felt that things were going to be okay. The dark haired woman at the keyboard smiled, and retained her mystery. At one point, the entire audience clapped in rhythm to replace the missing drum set. We all felt invested in the performance, because even though the lead singer forgot his words at one point and had to go back to the start of the song, we all understood that to err is to be human, and we just found him all the more relatable for it.
Ultimately the saving grace of Sea Wolf was not the rapport that they eventually established with the audience, but the music that they managed to produce despite whatever discomfort may have been plaguing their sinuses. The sound of Sea Wolf is distinctly melancholy with a lightness that makes the musical enjoyable rather than morose. The words are usually a bit sad, but a shaker and occasional tambourines make the melody uplifting and infused with hope. Sea Wolf makes the listener feel like they are a sailor on a small boat in a big ocean, a sailor who has been feeling fairly alone for a while in a consistent rain, but the rain has just stopped, and silvery sunlight is brushing up against the waves and reminding the sailor why they came out to sea in the first place. Overall Sea Wolf was an enjoyable experience, and the band pulled through despite the lead singer’s cold.