The Student Video Network brought The Costigans, a Houston-based band, to campus Thursday evening to perform before the last night of the Outdoor Movie Festival.
“I saw it on ‘The Departed,’” said John Najm, the band’s vocalist and guitarist, in regard to the band’s name. “It sounded like a nice classic ’60s band name.”
The band is your typical five-piece — two guitars, bass, drums and piano — supplemented by multiple singers with Najm, who leads with vocals.
“(We play) theatrical alternative, theatrical pop,” Najm said.
“Usually one of us will bring something to the table and say ‘Hey, we wrote this’ and John takes care of all the vocals,” said Edgar Lopez, the band’s lead guitarist and supporting vocalist.
The band members have written more than 60 songs throughout their three years together and plan to write more as they go into the fourth, this month.
“(Now we’re) writing music, practicing, playing, working on our hair, putting Rogaine in places where it needs to be to make sure we’re still rock stars,” Najm said.
They have been featured on Fox 26 and recorded their own music video for their song “Sound the Angels,” which can be found on YouTube.
As far as the actual performance, The Costigans put on a worthy show considering it was without its fifth member — pianist David Kirkland.
To make up for his absence, the band played with some recordings that enabled it to emulate a more robust sound similar to a church band or a rock group that features strings.
Besides piano, the recording contained other instrumentation, featured on its self-titled album.
“We’re always in the studio, we’re always writing music and recording,” said Najm.
Before wrapping up the set, The Costigans showcased creativity with a cover of “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty.
The band has played at UH before and hopes to return at some point in the future for another performance.
SVN brings The Costigans: http://t.co/CgdeQTId