Frente! Live at Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California – June 10, 1994
Frente! appeared in the late 80s/early 90s and succeeded in confusing a lot of people. Although they were an Australian Indie/folk-rock outfit,they came along at a time when Grunge was coming into wide popularity and the decidedly quirky and slightly pop sentiments of this band caught people off guard. Initially, they were passed off by much of the press as summery sugar-pop, irreverent and at odds with the bands at the time. In short; Frente! was an anomaly.
Time has been much kinder to the band, as they started gaining popularity outside their native Australia, touring and gigging to get their material released via U.S. and European labels. Several singles from their debut, Marvin the Album, charted when it was reissued internationally in 1994, which is where this concert comes from.
During a time when they were actively promoting their album, they managed to get the attention of the audience as well as U.S. press and the reactions were favorable. Certainly enough to sustain the band until 1996 when they called it quits for the first time.
Frente! have gone through several personnel changes as well as two breakups and three reunions. The latest taking place in 2010, which is seeing the band still together as of 2014, but now as a duo with founding members Simon Austin and Angie Hart.
Still hard to categorize and still quirky, Frente! are nonetheless enjoyable and, as has been described by the press; “genuinely fresh and honest”.
Ironically, the set they perform at The Shoreline Amphitheatre is quite short; 18 minutes total. But they do manage to cram quite a lot of music into a small space, so it isn’t as though they are only doing one or two songs, or this isn’t an incomplete recording, this was their set in 1994.
If you missed them, you can now catch up.
