The whole room was sweating, bobbing softly as they gazed through the humidity at a small stage backed by bookshelves.
Tangibly dazed Avi Buffalo fans were soothed by the Long Beach native’s Lo-Fi music when he played at Fingerprints record store on an unusually humid Tuesday evening.
“This is a little bit of a homecoming,” said Fingerprints owner Rand Foster. He vocally reminisced about the days over four years ago, when Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg was just a “kid” hanging out in the record store on 2nd Street before it moved to 4th Street in 2011.
Buffalo revisited Fingerprints Tuesday night for a belated, record-release show for his newest album, “At Best Cuckold,” which was released Sept. 9.
The small, but proud community of fans, many including family of Buffalo and the band packed into the room.
Fans thronged around the small stage supporting Buffalo and his talented three-piece band: Sheridan Riley on drums, Doug Brown on bass and Anthony Vezirian rocking the keyboard. The band was bathed in the soft-colored light cast by the well-known Fingerprints sign.
A relative of Buffalo stood in front, pulling out about as many photography iPhone apps as the iPhone could store, grinning when he would glanced over at her. Vezirian shouted out to his cat and congratulated his sister for her birthday.
Each song started out with Buffalo’s signature style: immediate vocals with a somewhat tame rhythm. However, the songs always ended with an elevated energy, Buffalo and Vezirian’s fingers moving too fast to follow, the drummer’s posture growing taller and the bassist keeping it cool in the corner.
The petite Buffalo started off the first half of his set somewhat quietly, making little eye contact with the crowd and merely saying thank you between songs. After he broke momentarily from the rest of the band to play a song alone, the energy seemed to rise.
As the room was dehydrating, the electricity was rising, and by the end of the second to last song, “Oxygen,” the heat was palpable and the whole room was aware of it, grinning nonetheless at the subtly impressive performance that Buffalo brought back to Long Beach.
“You’re tiny, and your lips look like bacon,” he sang in his lovable trademark falsetto, and the crowd, namely his family members and close friends, grinned.
Buffalo started making music as a sophomore at Millikan High School, and he has released two albums since then.
His first self-titled album was released in 2010, and he immediately fell under the radar of Sub Pop records. He has rearranged his band since then, replacing the bassist and keyboardist.
According to Sub Pop records, his new album was a “three-year journey,” during which Buffalo explored and toured Europe, DJing, relationships and himself.
Although the style of the new album stays true to his first, the songs are predominantly about the rollercoaster of relationships, shown not only in his lyrics but also his musicality.
Buffalo will be on tour until November, after which he will visit Long Beach once again.