The Postmarks

with The Cook Trio

Orlando, Florida • August 11, 2007

Margarita Gonzalez

From their appearances in the CMJ charts, to features in Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, The Postmarks have had momentum on their side this year. Tonight’s show in Orlando was the conclusion of a brief tour that included a stop in Chicago for Lollapalooza.

The show at Taste, a restaurant in the College Park area in Orlando, was a different scenario altogether. The big crowds were reduced to about three dozen people gathered in a small room with colored walls separated from the dining area by a curtain in the place of a door.

The bill at the door read “The Postmarks and friends” so I did not know what to expect from the first band. They go by the name The Cook Trio. The audience started to fill the room during their sound check, moving the chairs around to have a fair view of the stage. This acoustic group is based in Central Florida and consists of two guitar players, Brothers Ian and Jason Cook, and an upright bass player, Kyle Jones. Their music sounds to me like a combination of European melodies with American jazz. A few couples where dancing at some point and I thought their style set the right mood for the headliner.

The Postmarks started the show with “Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” which despite of the faux launching due to a technical matter, succeeded in captivating the audience’s attention. The set was not a long one but had a lot of little details to listen to. Tim Yehezkely’s lyrics sing of stuff like “remember the best, forgive and forget the rest” with a delicate yet controlled voice and keyboard player Jeff Wagner surprised the wide-eyed spectators with his interpretation of the melodies on the record.

The ethereal quality of the sounds was complemented by drummer Jon Wilkins with rhythmic precision, with tightly knit bassist Brian Hill following suit. People watching the show barely moved and rarely took their eyes away from the stage. To watch them play is very captivating and the intensity of their playing makes up for the stillness on the stage.

As the set concluded, the band turned it up to eleven and spilled out all of the melancholy into an intense arrangement of “You Drift Away” that distanced itself quite a bit from the recorded version. The cherry on top came in the form a cover of “Dreamer” by the Brazilian singer of “The Girl from Ipanema,” Astrud Gilberto. During this, only two people remained onstage, Yehezkely and Christopher Moll, the guitar player and architect behind the music. Her melodic voice blended perfectly with his guitar and although it is a soft-spoken song, provided a passionate finale to the show.

I spoke to some of the people in the audience at the end and all of them were moved by the band they had just seen. If you are familiar with the record and wonder how or if they pull it off live, you have to see it for yourself. Next time they tour, go to their show. You might be pleasantly surprised.

The Postmarks: http://www.thepostmarks.com ◼