The Moth and The Flame take the rooftop

Friday’s rooftop concert in Provo featuring the Moth and The Flame, and opened by Coral Bones and the Brocks was the first once since students returned to school for fall semester, and they showed up in droves.

Before The Moth and The Flame started playing, the two top levels of the parking garage that serves as the venue for the rooftop concerts were so full of people that there was a short wait in a line to get up the stairs. The beauty of having a concert on this particular rooftop is that the acoustics are great; for people indifferent about physically seeing the band, stand within a city block. You’ll hear it just fine.

The Provo-born, alternative rock band moved to Los Angeles, but they haven’t forgotten their roots. They saved news specifically to announce to their people – two days earlier they had signed a new record deal with Elektra Records (their previous album, &, had been released on Hidden Records). The concert was a step off their tour with Neon Trees that they have been on this summer.

The rooftop series has been going on all summer, every summer, for the past five years but for the first time, Provo Power lifted two concert-goers into a bucket truck to listen to the concert 25 feet above everyone else’s heads. Kate Linford set up the fancy-pants seats after the bucket truck had success at the Provo fair.

They played songs from their & album, released in November 2013, a few covers, and songs off their self-titled debut album, released in 2011. Hearing songs from their first album was particularly significant – the band never released that album digitally. Fans and other curious music appreciators  can only buy a physical copy.

Their rendition of ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday,’ (originally by U2), was entirely appropriate, considering lead singer Brandon Robbins (The Moth, by the way), sounds very much like Bono (with just a little bit of Brandon Flowers from the Killers).

Robbins’ brother, Nathan, came on stage to sing ‘’Lullabye II,” which he wrote for his daughter five years ago in a previous band the Robbins’ brothers and Mark Garbett (The Flame) were in, Somber Party. TMTF grandfathered it into their performance canon.

It seems like all Provo bands are connected in one way or more ways (seems? They are). Here’s another string for the web – Andrew Tolman, drummer for TMTF, also played with (actually, started) Imagine Dragons before leaving a few years ago, and plays for an indie rock group called Mount Saint. And there’s more – Garbett also plays with Parlor Hawk.

The band didn’t play for more than 45 minutes. The parking garage started to thin out a few songs before the end, but a 5/6 (estimated) full parking garage down from a full parking garage is still a lot of people at this increasingly popular way to spend a Friday evening in Provo.