Tera Ferna, Fader Friend and Future Sailor Rock Out Jack’s Bar

There was a point in time when you could see stickers plastered across trapper keepers and hand-me-down cars with the words “Support Local Music.” It’s a great sentiment in its literal meaning, but can often be fixated on causality of “you should support all music that is local whether you like it or not, because it is local.” I’m all for stimulating a local scene, but sitting through bands I have no interest in just because we go to the same post office is not very appealing to me. Fortunately, Jack’s Bar played host to a trio of bands with diverse sounds that embody the reason why we should support them; and it goes way beyond the city they call home.

On Saturday May 21, local bands Future Sailor, Fader Friend and Tera Ferna took the stage to a great crowd scattered throughout the venue. While all three bands don’t share a lot of common ground in terms of their overall sound, they all managed to show why they belong on stage and why they do what they do.

Future Sailor started off the show with a somber, engaging sound reminiscent of Rilo Kiley and Straylight Run’s brand of pop rock. It’s never easy to keep composure as the opening band of a local show, but the band played with the same conviction throughout as the crowd trickled in little-by-little. They were great start to finish and even threw in a very solid cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees,” a song that played to the band’s strengths and really let them shine. Their set was a great introduction to the night.

Fader Friend promptly took the stage after with their own lighting: two blocks of flashing lights that could’ve lit up a tee-ball field behind them that definitely set the mood for their brand of lovelorn pop punk. Complete with a new lineup, they brought a ton of energy as they cycled through their discography with little to no interruption in between. A contemporary band that manages to captures a nostalgic sound of bands from the mid-aughts like The Early November, while maintaining pop rock sensibilities of 90s bands like The Gin Blossoms. It was a great showing from a band that is just hitting its stride that really captured the essence of what they’re about.

Tera Ferna closed out the show with their brand of intricate pop rock that really flexes on serene romanticism heart-on-its-sleeve lyricism. I’ve always felt like Tera Ferna’s music sounds like a vivid painting; their instrumentation like brushstrokes and their arrangements like a barrage of beautiful colors. Their live show is a representation of this sound all the while managing to keep things simple with a basic set up.

It’s always a breath of fresh air to witness bands that embody what makes local shows good to begin with. Whether you’re watching a band you’re friends with, or a band you’ve seen open up for other touring acts or you’re just there to discover new local music, nothing promotes local music better than when the bands don’t rest on the laurels of people supporting local music just because it is local. It’s good to know that we live in a city with a local scene full of diverse musicians who pour everything they have into their music. They don’t want you to support them because they’re local, they want you to support them because you like their music. This local concert only showed that there’s a lot to like about our local scene.