Photo by Alejandra Sol Casas
Covet and Anamanaguchi brought two distinct flavors of nerd rock to Stable Hall on Friday, with Drook opening the San Antonio stop of their co-headlining tour.
For Covet, the nerdiness is in the music itself. Led by guitarist Yvette Young alongside Hikes bassist Claire Glass and drummer Jessica Burdeaux, the instrumental trio works in the intricate rhythms, alternate tunings, and elaborate finger-tapping of math rock.
Anamanaguchi approaches from another corner of nerd culture, combining guitars and drums with the electronic sounds of hacked video game hardware. The New York band is perhaps best known for scoring Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game and has collaborated with virtual pop star Hatsune Miku.
A strong contingent of anime, gaming, and internet-culture fans made the show feel like an unofficial San Japan after-party at times.
By the time Covet took the stage, Young quickly established an easy rapport with that audience. She regularly stopped to talk with fans before and between songs, at one point becoming so engrossed in a conversation that she momentarily forgot she was supposed to be tuning her guitar.
Asked about her favorite anime, Young named Inuyasha before joking, “Would y’all be mad at me if I said SpongeBob?”
Young also shared pieces of her own history between songs, telling the crowd that she once worked as an art teacher and that one of her students encouraged her to start recording videos and uploading them online. The tour itself represented something of a full-circle moment: Young said she listened to Anamanaguchi in high school and was a fan long before she found herself sharing a bill with them.
Together, the two bands made a convincing case for the broad umbrella of nerd rock: one built around the technical complexity of math rock, the other steeped in video games and digital culture, with an audience that appeared equally at home in both worlds.
