Lilofee | 02.24.09 | San Francisco

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Words by: Lindsay Colip | Images by: Steven Walter

Lilofee :: 02.24.09 :: Mezzanine :: San Francisco, CA

Lilofee :: 02.24.09 :: San Francisco

You would never know that lead singer Kimi Recor had a huge surge of stage fright minutes before taking the stage during Noise Pop 2009's opening night at Mezzanine. Wearing a very sexy Miss Scarlett-esque dress and flawlessly belting out song after song with confidence and purpose, the chanteuse rocked the power gloves off of her audience. However, she didn't do it alone. Lilofee is made up of Recor on vocals, Rob Easson on lead guitar, Dan Aquino on drums and Cyrus Etemad on bass. San Francisco locals, Recor and Easson met back in 2007 through a mutual friend and ended up spending 15 hours straight that night in a recording studio making the music that would eventually inspire the formation of Lilofee. The name of the band came from Recor, a Berlin native, who took it from an old, dark German fairytale with lessons concerning love and sacrifice, sadness and selfishness, all themes that Lilofee sing about, making the name a strong choice.

They describe their sound as a combination of '80s dark pop, '60s girl bands and '90s industrial. Accurate, but Lilofee is greater than throwbacks to past decades. Their performance at Mezzanine was definitely dark and moody, but also lined with hints of fun and playfulness. Sometimes Kimi would scream and head bang, and even at one point appeared to 'die' on stage, a very slow dramatic fall-to-the-floor death with the band continuing on without her - fantastically dramatic. Other times, however, she danced around, happily fist pumping and playfully seducing her front row gawkers. The icing came when halfway through the show she took off her pantyhose because they were annoyingly sagging down, making her feel "fifty." So, with a warning to the fans, she took them right off onstage, flung them into the audience and sang the rest of the set barefoot. This duality of her character - the siren goddess mixed with the accessible girl next door - kept the audience hooked.

Lilofee :: 02.24.09 :: San Francisco

Speaking of duality, Etemad mentioned before the show that those who were only familiar with their music through their studio material would be in for a different experience seeing them play live. Where the album is heavily electronic and pop, their live sound is much more rock. One might think this could turn off fans expecting to hear one thing but getting another, but Lilofee didn't disappoint. Even though this was only their eleventh show, they played like seasoned performers, giving the crowd no choice but to dance and dance hard.

Download "Lock and Key" and "Destroy Me" for a good idea of their overall sound and remarkable ability to get lyrics stuck in your head. "Hey mister, hey mister, I kissed your kid sister/ Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do?" simply can't be ignored. Damnit!

Overall, Lilofee crushed Noise Pop's inaugural performance, huffing and puffing and blowing the house down.

Lilofee tour dates available here.