Longtime indie-rock mainstays Real Estate visited San Francisco’s Bimbo’s 356 Club for the last stop on the West Coast leg of their ‘Infinite Jangle Tour’. In a curious schedule quirk, it was the band’s second visit to the City by the Bay in under a month, though this clearly did not turn away fans at this sold out date, with hopeful scalpers outside looking for last minute tickets in to the show.
Supporting their February release ‘Daniel’, Real Estate played a crowd-pleasing blend of new songs and old hits. While some bands age and go stale, and others grow away from their original styles, Real Estate have split the difference with a new album that both expands upon and tightens up on their previous releases to date. After nearly two decades of playing together, Real Estate ooze a cool, calm, relaxed presence onstage. They settle into their bones, grooving along with their own tunes, nodding to each other and cracking jokes to the crowd. These days, brief technical difficulties don’t slow them down as they took time to banter on-stage during such a moment— “Hey, who in the crowd has a 1/4 inch guitar cable? Seriously, we’re not joking here!” the band pleaded after a guitar outage. In another break after 2014’s hit “Talking Backwards”: “Could we lay down a cool jazz beat and turn on this disco ball for a few minutes?” the band asked, a clear homage Bimbo’s history as a 1930’s Jazz club.
Rocking receding hairlines up top and wedding rings on their fingers, Real Estate have aged at the same pace as any of us. We evolve and grow, but our personalities remain mostly the same- true to our roots. Will we see them again in San Francisco in another month? Likely not. But no one in the crowd would be blamed for buying a third ticket to see them return again and again.
