Tender Forever, Your Heart Breaks at Henry Art Gallery

January 16, 2012 at 4:53 PM | by Nate Watters

When Facebook, 3-D films and live music are all brought in to one room together, it's hard to say whether things will go well. Last Thursday at Henry Art Gallery, it was obvious that these things do, indeed go well with one another when in the right hands. With collaborative music project Your Heart Breaks and solo artist Tender Forever under one roof together, a night of entertaining multimedia showmanship ensued.

Your Heart Breaks took the stage first. The band has reportedly involved up to 50 different members throughout the past decade or so. This particular performance included Clyde Peterson on guitar and vocals.

Peterson, an animator/illustrator by trade, created clips of 3-D video that ran as a backdrop to the soundtrack of YHB's ambient sounds of looped guitar and synth samples.

Melanie Valera, a.k.a. Tender Forever immediately pulled up her Facebook page to introduce the theme of her performance, which was "freedom from intensity", after she heard that her performances had been labeled "intense" by fans.

Valera creatively utilized a set of Nintendo Wii controllers as a percussion instrument for part of her set.

Between her actual songs, Valera improvised comedic lyrics, dubbing over videos she'd previously found online as they were projected behind her. An obvious pattern in content choice for the videos was headbanging, an activity that Valera's brother suggested to her as a means of relaxation.