Recap: Hinds at the Empty Bottle

Hinds at the Empty Bottle on Thursday night

Hinds, a four-piece garage pop group from Madrid, came through town, playing a packed show at the Empty Bottle Thursday night. By all appearances, Hinds have always come off to me as four friends who decided to kick around some tunes together and wound up touring the world before anyone knew what had happened. The band has one catchy, critically acclaimed album: 2016's Leave Me Alone. There is always more to the "overnight" success story and indeed, Hinds has existed in some form since 2011. They blew up last year with Leave Me Alone and its opening song "Garden." Their reach was apparent Thursday night. If memory serves, the last time Hinds came through Chicago, they played Thalia Hall in Pilsen. So when they played the Empty Bottle as part of the Red Bull Sound Select series, a venue roughly 10 times smaller than Thalia Hall, it was packed from front to back. The show sold out and there were plenty of hopeful RSVP-ers lined up outside the venue after the start of the show.

The band - Carlotta Cosials, Ana García Perrote, Ade Martín and Amber Grimbergen - appear just as energetic and loose on stage as they sound on the recordings. Hinds' set naturally drew heavily from their sole album, but they did break out a couple new songs. They are recording a new album that should come out later this year. The band warned the audience that one of the new songs had just been written in the studio a couple weeks earlier and had not been properly rehearsed. The crowd soaked in the new songs with vigor.

Hinds with Twin Peaks at the Empty Bottle on Thursday night

Fresh off a tour with Chicago locals Twin Peaks, Hinds invited a couple memebers of the band on stage for a cover of the Twin Peaks song "Sweet Thing." The two bands toured the West coast during April. I am guessing Twin Peaks told them a thing or two about Chicago. Check out the band shooting pool at Cole's Bar on Wednesday night on their Instagram account.