Weekend Make Noisy Debut in Chicago

It may not have been the weekend yet, but San Francisco noise rockers Weekend treated their Wednesday show as if it was already Friday night. Having only formed a year ago, the band released its debut record 'Sports' on Nov. 9 and have been garnering plenty of buzz. On Wednesday, to promote the new record, the trio opened for fellow Bay Area group Young Prisms at the Subterranean in Chicago.

Midway through their half-hour set, lead singer Shaun Durkan said it was the band's first trip to the Windy City, and thanks to all the greasy food and beer they'd been eating, thus far it had been a fun visit. Playing to a sparse crowd, Weekend opened with the album's first track, 'Coma Summer,' which mixed wall-of-reverb sound effects and Durkan's incomprehensible lyrics under fuzzy distortion.

Even though their songs get compared to the moodiness of Joy Division and the histrionics of A Place to Bury Strangers, Weekend's songs are much more melodic and at times danceable, like the frolicking 'Monongah, WV.' During a percussion break, drummer Abe Pedroza bowed his head down and absorbed the beautiful noise until it was his turn to play again.

With a limited time to play, Weekend blazed though shoegazey tracks 'Afterimage,' 'Monday Monday,' the jagged 'Age Class' and 'Untitled' before giving the crowd's eardrums a rest. Despite the thin audience and the short set, Weekend proved that they're worth of the hype -- and that Chicago hadn't seen the last of them.