Friday, January 27^th was quite a night for anyone who was at 416 Wabash. Kokomo’s Shiny Penny rolled through the Hoosier State’s capital for their first show of the year, and brought with them Columbus, Ohio favorites Vesperteen and Louisville “western pop” rockers A Lion Named Roar, with local support the wldlfe kicking off the night. The venue itself is tucked away on a side street in downtown Indianapolis, making it difficult to find for any first-time visitors. Once you can get within a block of the building and follow the music the rest of the way though, the first thing you’ll notice about 416 Wabash is how versatile the space is. The part-recording studio, part-dance club, part-performance venue serves all kinds of different functions, but on the 27^th it transformed exclusively into a great concert room.

Though I unfortunately missed all of the wldlfe’s set due to this initial inability to find the venue, I’ll be catching them in a few weeks opening up for COIN anyway, so all is not lost. I didn’t actually walk into the space until partway through A Lion Named Roar’s set, but I was enjoying the Southern rock vibe I heard from the Louisville quintet. Frontman Chris Jackson broke out the tambourine on more than one occasion, and the band’s cover of The Killers’ “When You Were Young” was noteworthy as well.

Columbus’ Vesperteen came up next, and their commanding stage presence stood out to me immediately. The collective only be a trio, but I found their versatility (of each member individually and also as a group) rather impressive. The simplicity of many of their songs could have been to their downfall, but instead the gentlemen kept things interesting with primarily driving tunes and a few slower ones. For me, the highlights of Vesperteen’s set were hearing their latest single “What We Could Have Been” and their relentless set closer “Shatter in the Night,” the latter of which has been a favorite of mine ever since I first caught wind of it on this very site.

Eventually, the time came for the local heroes and headliners, Shiny Penny. The Kokomo quartet kicked things off at full throttle, with the crunchy bassline throughout and a dueling drum back-and-forth near the end of “Insanity,” but that high-octane sound was just one element of the band’s multi-faceted sonic approach. Among the different sounds they touched on throughout their set were straight-ahead rock and roll, nasty electronics, a more subdued country tune (for which singer Dean Schimmelpfennig’s wife came up on stage to sing along with him), and a stripped-down “campfire” song they played in the middle of the circled-up audience. Shiny Penny’s wide range of sounds made their set something special, and it was certainly a great way to close out the night.