By Chelsea Schmid
Staff Writer who is Special to LIVE!
December 21, 2007

Evolution. It’s an important thing for a band, and it encompasses many things: development, style changes, keeping with the culture. It may also mean just honing your skills and becoming a good, solid unit. “Evolution” is a term Austin-based Ember is familiar with, apparently.

I met the band members back in August when they played Rock the Rio and Bar Jam with Vallejo, Mothers Anthem, and Seth James. Working as a lighting tech on pretty much every big rock show in the region, I deemed myself a pretty good thermometer on what was hot and what was not, and on my initial encounter, Ember was colder than a snow day in Canada. I marveled at how these guys had scored the main-support slot when clearly, they should have been openers. Had the members all been practicing in different rooms? Had they somehow scrambled the order when writing up their set lists? Who had told these guys they were ready to play a show bigger than a broom closet?

Ok, so maybe they weren’t that bad—and surely my opinion was somewhat biased by the rock star attitudes they exuded and the ridiculously rude behavior of their lead singer—but they didn’t have it together.

I was less than excited the next time I had the joy of doing lighting for them, this time at the Austin Ink Fest. I had befriended a couple of the members at the infamous Bar Jam after-party, and all were talented musicians in their own rite. Together, however, they had lacked a unity pertinent to live performance.

But when they took the stage this time, I almost thought they were a different band. I don’t know if they had knocked the walls out of their separate rehearsal spaces or if Todd (the sound guy) was secretly tracking the whole set, but the performance had improved a good deal since. It wasn’t a complete 180; perhaps a safe 90.

Presence-wise, they moved about the stage with more confidence and fluidity than they had in the past. They weren’t five different guys playing the same song, they were a band of four with a lead singer doing karaoke: A guy who stood as still as a stone, like Medusa had been in the crowd, frozen all but for his lips. The performance wasn’t perfect, but wasn’t bad, either.

Ember opened for Vallejo last Friday at The Steel Penny. Since the last time I’d seen them, a lot of big things had happened for Ember and it seemed to have lit a fire under their…amps. Their sound and presence was more polished. The songs that had been the strongest before now commanded the audience, and the band as a whole seemed more comfortable on stage. Even vocalist Chris Martinez had found his livelihood: someone had busted up all that cement in his shoes.

I now anticipate only good things for Ember. I suppose we should be mindful that no one starts out a star. It’s a long and arduous process that takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Those who heard their set seemed to approve.