Dum Dum Girls brought its 1960s-inspired lo-fi pop music to Chronic Town, 224 W. College Ave., Tuesday night, creating enough excitement for audience members to attempt crowd surfing at the small venue.
However, the four-piece, all-girl band dressed in black didn’t take the stage until past 11 p.m. at the downtown hookah bar.
Students and community members were entertained before the main act by local post-punk band Dead Channel, which formed in January.
The band consists of drummer Steve Mattes, bassist Kevin Clair and singer Devin Daniels, who named Joy Division and soul music as their initial influence, and the Dum Dum Girls as a band they try to sound like.
Daniels, Class of 2011, said this was the biggest show they have ever opened for, though Chronic Town is known as a very intimate stage.
“We like the tone of the Dum Dum Girls. It’s vintage,” Daniels said. “We don’t do surf music, but we try to have their mindset.’
Daniels and Clair also said that Dead Channel getting picked to open for the Dum Dum Girls over other local bands was not about competition.
“The local bands need to support each other in getting gigs so that State College can establish a bigger music scene because without a community, there is no scene,” Daniels said.
Jaye Plumb (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) knew she wanted to come to the concert once she heard about the event through Students Organizing the Multiple Arts, who co-sponsored the concert.
“I wanted to come hear something new and some live music, so we came out tonight,” Plumb said. “I liked Dead Channel, too, but I feel like they would make a better instrumental band.”
Others, like Claudia Bogdan (sophomore-division of undergraduate studies), wanted to see Dum Dum Girls because she said they provide a fresh take on Indie music.
“I had no idea this concert was happening until today, and I’m sort of glad because if there was more advertising, too many people might be at the show,” Bogdan said.
The small garage basement-like venue wasn’t completely packed by the time Dum Dum Girls finally came out, but there was enough people who were dancing, shouting and crowd-surfing in front of the stage for frontwoman, Dee Dee, to call the crowd “crazy.”
Eventually the crowd calmed down enough to enjoy the beach-like sounds of Dum Dum Dum Girls. They sang some hits like, “I Will Be Your Girl” from their first album “I Will Be.”
Although all their songs sounded very similar, they were still able to evoke thoughts of basking in the sun on a West Coast beach.
