Live music review: Wine Lips and Forty Feet Tall rocked 13th Floor
On Monday, May 6, Red River Cultural District venue, The 13th Floor was flooded with patrons stoked to check out Wine Lips on the heels of their latest full-length release, Super Mega Ultra. One month to the day after the LP release, the Canadian quartet put on a raucous, mosh-inducing performance with enough pull to prompt friends Forty Feet Tall to fly in from Portland for the pairing. The two bands rocked 13th Floor with stand-out performances.
Just after 9 p.m., Forty Feet Tall took the stage to open the show, and the crowd inside 13th thickened in anticipation.
Ian Kelley’s drumming, and Brett Marquette’s bass, laid a foundation for the opening set; while the dual guitar work of Jack Sehres and Cole Gann, directed the performance tempo. All the while, Gann’s vocals, backed by the band, fueled the anxious, hyped-up crowd.
It was the perfect opening set.
Almost immediately after ten, headliners Wine Lips kicked off their set and promptly accelerated the collective pulse of the room. Opening with “Get Your Money,” the Toronto four-piece wasted no time setting their tone. The band then seamlessly transitioned to “Choke,” from the 2021 classic, Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party.
The third number Wine Lips played was “Derailer,” the opening track from Super Mega Ultra, before zigzagging again to their 2021 release with “Tension.” They hit their stride with an ultra-emphatic rendition of “Stimulation.” Fans moshed and crowd-surfed with gusto as Wine Lips ripped through their performance.
After a brief pause, the opening guitar strums from “Eyes,” the introductory track from MDSBP, accelerated the amped-up audience’s collective energy. Initially finishing the set off with an extended blend of “Fried IV” and “Kamikaze,” the group placed an emphatic exclamation point on the entire evening with “High On your Own Supply,” and “Big Muff.”
The set was a fine-tuned, jam-out session that developed the perfect atmosphere for the mosh-frenzied crowd, expanding with each musical number.
As great as Wine Lips (Cam Hilborn on guitar and vox, Jordan Sosensky on guitar, Aurora Evens on drums, and Charlie Weare on the bass) sounds on studio recordings, everything fans love about them is amplified immensely in their live performance. Their live sound is even more raw, vigorous, visceral and engaging, with a stage presence that is impressively trashy in the best possible way. They are beyond good at what they do.
Wine Lips finish their tour soon with dates on the West Coast. Tour stops include Los Angeles’ Troubadour and San Diego’s Casbah. The tour ends in Detroit on June 1.
All photos by Drew Doggett
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