I will never miss an opportunity to see Mates of State whenever they either come to town or perform at a festival I'm attending. Their brand of indie pop is tried and tested, and has been as consistent as any band I've seen perform on numerous occasions. Husband/wife duo Jason Hammell and Kori Gardner brought a couple of additional auxiliary instrumentalists for this performance to fill out their sound, and it made songs like "My Only Offer" and "Rearrange Us" take on many new dimensions. They performed with a certain vigor, and made openers Free Energy look paltry in comparison – and I really enjoyed Free Energy's energetic and youthful performance. Both bands provided quite a nice soundtrack for a packed weekday performance in Warehouse Live's Studio. I happily drank and danced and sweated out what was still left in me from the previous weekends adventure to Atlanta for Phish's Fourth of July run. This show, on top of the Edward Sharpe show we caught in Dallas a few days prior, was the perfect hangover cure for one of the best weekends ever.

I took a whole bunch of pictures of both Free Energy and Mates of State, which you can check out after the jump.

Free Energy

Mates of State

Words and photos by Jim "Eggs" Bricker