TV Girl plays it frustratingly safe

Since forming in 2010, LA-based indie pop band TV Girl has done an exceptional job at forming a brand identity that’s affectionately influenced by nostalgic pop culture yet instantly recognizable as their own. Combining 60s sunshine pop, playful hip-hop beats, and old melodramatic film samples, the group has released three studio albums of fun pop songs that support wistfully romantic lyrics to indulge in a myth of youthful sexuality. Their album artwork aptly features brightly colored pop art portraits, and even their name suggests a youthful performance. One would expect their live performances to be as accessibly entertaining and saturated as their recorded music.

Yet, with their performance at the Swedish American Hall, all of those enticing elements seemed to amount to less than the sum of their parts. Supporting their third album Death of a Party Girl (2018) with a brief eleven song setlist, the trio performed primarily by grooving moderately in place behind their electronics and delivering casual vocals just as recorded. This limited instrumental presence wouldn’t be a problem itself if it weren’t for their sound’s reliance on colorful audio collage, which lost its vibrancy onstage as a cheapened combination of prerecorded beats and minimal (or at least heavily downplayed) live performance.

To be fair, since their music beneficially utilizes samples, perhaps it is unreasonable to expect TV Girl to recreate their sound through live instruments. However, that lack of engaging visual performance naturally displaces a lot of visual attention onto the background imagery and lead vocalist. The night’s visuals were limited to a color shifting nightlight of their “Dream Girl” logo, which is good marketing but maintained the same repetitive cycle and quickly grew tiresome. The underwhelming visuals left frontman Brad Petering to lead the show, but his performance was ultimately limited to restained dancing and mild, almost bored vocal delivery. The vocals were heightened at points by harmonies from bandmates Jason Wyman and Wyatt Harmon, but otherwise, the show often felt like karaoke but with routine comments like “thank you” and “we love you guys” peppered in between songs.

The simple, speech-like vocals in their records aren’t an inherent issue either; they actually juxtapose nicely with the band’s lively studio production. As live performers, however, TV Girl failed to take any notable risks to bolster excitement. The setlist’s meager inclusion of only two new songs was a missed opportunity, especially since Death of a Party Girl contains a few slower songs that could have diversified the show’s dance-heavy pace. Probably the only risky move of the night was Petering’s pseudo-stand-up bit comparing contradicting titles of famous love songs, amounting to the unfortunately trite conclusion that love is confusing. Since TV Girl’s music is filled with exaggerated and sometimes petty storylines of young people experiencing or chasing love, the bit could have been appropriate with the right, myth-indulging tone. Instead, Petering came across as sarcastic, simultaneously sounding above his own examples while continuing to list four or five more pairs before leading into the doo-wop “It Evaporates” from 2012 mixtape The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle. For a closing pre-encore song, I was hoping for a patient, cathartic finish, but the aimless execution still felt half-hearted.

The audience, condensing in the front half of the Swedish American’s intimate space, danced continually through the night. A notably youthful and active crowd, they seemed to stay engaged despite my personal grievances. While I thought openers Pink Skies and Wished Bone both made mistakes that seem to come with inexperience, the crowd nevertheless cheered and swayed through any pitchy vocals and awkward banter tropes. Although I do suspect many crowd members were friends with the acts, I can’t deny that many in the audience were enjoying themselves.

To TV Girl’s credit, I enjoyed their encore of “Heaven Is a Bedroom” from Who Really Cares (2016), but one resonant groove can’t make up for a night of lackluster expression. The most frustrating aspect of their paint-by-numbers performance is that they weren’t making musical mistakes or having technical difficulties, but just playing through their set plainly. Like banal TV, the show was quick and full of distant melodrama without much emotional impact. Watching was a better way to spend time than doing nothing, but not particularly rewarding either. If the audience members who did enjoy themselves are just devoted fans or a particularly niche crowd, TV Girl still has creative production and witty, entertaining writing that could entice a much wider audience. They just need to prove they can engage their expressive potential in person.