One thing that stood out at last night’s Valley Queen show at the Entry was the high percentage of obvious couples and for once it did not look like boyfriends got dragged along to see a “chick band” but that they were quite cool with being at the show.
First up was local band Story Night. a fairly new Minneapolis band composed of Andrew Smith, Taylor Christianson, Patrick Horigan, and Henry Ingber. They have a dreamy pop sound and we look forward to seeing more of them in the future. Their sound had Valley Queen’s Natalie Carroll watching and tapping her combat boots.
Sam Cassidy was my personal surprise find of the evening. The band has been around for a few years but somehow our paths have never crossed. Those guys are FUN! The 6-piece fill the Entrie’s small stage with their gear. Their sound is solid and heavy on guitars with an old style organ thrown in. They summed up their set as well as I could: “That was a Rock’n Roll song, here’s another”
Valley Queen went straight into their set from a brief sound check catching me a bit by surprise. Front woman Natalie Carroll’s voice has been compared to Florence Henderson (personally she reminds me of Erika Wennerstrom from Heartless bastards) and when you mix that with influences of Motown, Southern Rock you got yourself a pretty interesting combination. Loosing here combat boots after the first song (they have more support if you tie them BTW) Carroll has quite the stage presence. My first time seeing the band, I really liked their performance especially since they played a great set at a lightly attended show.
