Last night, California based band Sherwood headlined a show at the Clubhouse in Tempe in support of their new album “Qu”. The three opening bands; Reece, Black Gold and Hot Chelle Rae.

First performance of the night was phoenix locals, Reece. When Singer Justin Reece sang the notes to his songs, you could tell that he meant it. Only having some demos and a new

EP out, Reece seemed a lot more established in their sound than most bands their age.

Next up after Reece was Black Gold, who has a song, “Shine”, that can be found on the soundtrack for the new movie Valentine’s Day. This Brooklyn, NY based band is lead by Eric Ronick (singer and keyboardist) and Than Luu (percussion, drums) supported by their touring members Kerry and Alistair on guitar and bass. The highlight of their set was their performance of “Shine” and “Breakdown”, both off of Black Gold’s most recent album Rush.

Next up was Nashville natives, Hot Chelle Rae (HCR). Throughout their set they played songs off newly released album Lovesick Electric. They played their new single “Bleed”, which is more a heartfelt ballad. In contract to “Bleed” was the faster and easily danceable song “I Like to Dance”. All the opening bands collectively set the right tone for Sherwood to take the stage.

Having three full albums and an EP out, Sherwood has built up a solid fan base that was there and excited to see them. This is Mike Leibovich’s (Keys/Percussion) last tour for a while as he is engaged and taking some time off but you could by his energetic performance that he was giving it all he had. Sherwood took some time between songs to tell some stories, crack some jokes and entertain friendly heckling from the crowd. They made it a point to play multiple songs from all three of their albums, to please the fans that have been around since the beginning. Some highlights would have been the performance of their new song “You Are” and some songs off of their album A Different Light (2007) like “For the Longest Time” and “Song In My Head”.

For more info on Sherwood please visit their myspace – http://www.myspace.com/sherwood

Sherwood “You Are”

Sherwood | MySpace Music Videos