Every Freakin' Friday Band: Melodime
By Broadside Staff Writer Dylan Hares
- Seeing Melodime, a local alternative rock band, gave me the feeling of being in a smoky bar in the south, like the kind from The Blues Brothers movies.
This four-piece ensemble from the Washington, D.C. area is a funk, soul, folk, blues, pop-rock tidal wave that rocks as hard as any seasoned club-band, but comes off as a casual garage band.
Their set, mostly consisting of up-tempo blues and soul tunes, was rather energetic, even if the band members themselves were not.
Many of their original tunes were definitely funky and toe-tap worthy, but mostly all sounded the same.
Male lead singer Bradley Rhodes gave a throaty vocal performance, harnessing a soulful sound which worked in all of the songs except those with a slower tempo.
As soon as female lead Rachel Beauregard opened her mouth though, I, like most of the audience, was taken aback by her big and soulful voice.
Both singers displayed good voices for their chosen genre and unlike most bands with male and female leads, their voices worked really well together.
The set was delicately sprinkled with soulful covers of The Beatles “All You Need Is Love,” Billy Joel’s “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” Ben Harper’s “Steal My Kisses,” and a flawless cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason,” familiar tunes which the audience didn’t hesitate in lending a voice.
They even surprised us with a very pleasant rendition of the classic “My Girl” by The Temptations which, to the band’s credit, made me fall back in love with the song.
Again, I think it was the spice of the great covers that really saved the performance.
Overall, Melodime is just that—mellow and fun. Nothing too crazy.
Their album, Memories in the Form of Sound, is available on iTunes and would probably be a great album for a party or road trip—which seems to be a consistent theme of Every Freakin’ Friday bands.
Overall, it was a real fun show and if you missed it, you can catch Melodime back here at George Mason University in the Johnson Center this Thursday playing a benefit show for Relay for Life with The Independent.
Check out the band’s MySpace page at myspace.com/mymelodime for a full listing of shows.