Moxie Headlined The Space in Las Vegas with Support from Flamingos In The Tree and Secos on January 14th, 2023

LAS VEGAS, NV – Vermont-based indie rock band Moxie made their Las Vegas debut as part of their 2023 winter tour last Saturday night when they headlined The Space with support from Reno alt-rock band Flamingos In The Tree and Vegas’s own Secos opening things up.

Secos is a very solid band with lots of energy, and I have seen Secos before. However, this was the first time I saw the band as a four-piece. One of their guitarists left the band which meant that singer David Candelas had to pick up the rhythm guitar duties.

I will say normally having 5 members in a band can be a bit overkill, but one thing about Secos is I feel that Candelas does need to be untethered as his presence as a frontman is diminished when he is holding a guitar.

That’s not to say that the music isn’t good, because that’s definitely not the case. The band rocks and still had on a good show. 

However, when Candelas is unleashed to be a frontman only, he rallies a crowd with the best of them. When he is playing guitar, he is invested in keeping in time with both vocals and guitar and also held down by the instrument. 

It sort of felt like Secos was a totally different band as they played though. They were more “traditional” which is sort of the exact opposite of what I appreciate about Secos to begin with.

So, if I could either see the band scale back to just one guitar (which likely could be done), or the band goes back to a 5-piece, then I think the energy is amplified from their performance.

They played through about 9 songs from memory with some of their crowd pleasers like “Monochrome” in there, and drummer Josh Loeza even picked up some backing vocals duties which definitely created a good vocal tone overall. I will say that was a cool improvement that has happened, and whether the band gets Candela away from the guitar or not, they should keep Loeza on backing vocals.

Up next was Flamingos In The Tree which put on a pretty rocking but mellow show. They definitely had their moments of flair, but I would say the overall tone is a pretty straightforward college rock band type of sound.

The band has a pretty large Instagram and Spotify following (over 100k on each platform) which is very hard to do for a rock band that is not signed to a major label. Hell, even major label bands don’t have that following on some platforms.

The band describes their sound as “indie/bedroom pop,” and I think that personifies the mellow vibe that I mentioned. 

They kinda remind me of The Beach Boys but with a modern indie-rock infusion. Maybe that can help give a bit of a picture of what they sound like.

Moxie took the stage to play an hour-long set which included about 20 songs or so. 

Technically speaking, Moxie has a lot of talent at each instrument with guitarist Leander Holzapfel playing everything from funk riffs to tap guitar solos, drummer Daniel Snyder busting out some swing beats that you typically don’t see from young bands, bassist David Cohen keeping things rocking with some funky bass lines as well, and singer Rei Kimura belting out wide-ranging vocals.

As a middle-aged guy who wouldn’t describe himself as a fan of music that makes you “dance,” I would say that Moxie has created something special in their ability to captivate you sonically while playing some pretty danceable music.

They actually reminded me a lot of another Vegas band called Arrlo in that sense.

Moxie doesn’t rely on anything outside of their instruments and voices, and they have some songs that can blow you away.

If I have only one critique of the band, I would say that many of the songs start to sound very similar overall, and they could probably do well to mix a few more styles together to get a bit of variety in their set…heck, even throw in a bit of a faster, more raucous song at some point. 

The band does play a few more uptempo songs, but the songs don’t quite transfer that tempo into a higher energy that is typical when a band plays a faster song. Maybe it was the fact that they were playing to a new crowd though.

Other than that, there were about 5 times where I thought, “Damn, this may be their best song.” Only to have another one come up a few songs later.

The band played a couple of new songs including their latest single, “The Next” which was mixed in with some of their more popular songs like “Blue Skies” and “Gelato.”

I really enjoyed their set, and I was impressed by all the bands on the bill.