(all photos courtesy of Keith Klenowski)
I miss going out to shows, the life of a family man can make that difficult at times. Add to it the winter touring schedule that has come through Cincinnati, and it becomes quite a drought for live music for me personally. So it did not take much to get me outta the house and over to Newport to check out Royal Bangs last week.

Royal Bangs are one of the bands from the midwest that I am most excited about of late. It started with their debut album, We Breed Champions, which caught the attention of Patrick Carney of The Black Keys, who re-issued it on his Audio Eagle label last year, and gave it the stage it deserved to turn some more heads, and that it did. But I was really won over during their session at WOXY.com last fall, when the band played a great set full of energy, rock, funk and new material. So, I figured, if they could pull it off like that in front of 3 of us, I’m certain it would translate to something special in concert.

So, despite Cincinnati on a Thursday night in the dead of winter, which can be tough for the most established bands in town, Royal Bangs was mostly unfazed by a small crowd, half of which had come along just to see the two openers, Come On Caboose and Vanity Theft.

The boys launched into their set, which included lots of new songs, and a couple favorites from their debut, like “New Scissors” and “Cat Swallow.” My personal favorite though is “Brother”, and judging the the fact that the band closed their set with it, some others must be addicted to the song as well.

Royal Bangs is the type of band that is every bit as exciting as the hip bands starting to turn heads on the coasts that get so much blog love, but for some reason being in the midwest seems to be holding them back a bit. I look forward to a new record from these guys some time in 2009, and if you get a chance to catch them live you should, thank me later.

In addition to the great photos by Keith Klenowski in this post, check out a very amatuerish video I took of the sets closing song below.

View Keith’s entire photoset here.

Royal Bangs – Brother Live @ Southgate House from Joe on Vimeo.