Concert Review: Junip, November 5, Lee’s Palace

Toronto – I will readily admit that I knew very little about Junip before going to this show, but I do like Jose Gonzalez.  His solo stuff has a nice, almost hypnotic vibe to it, so I was interested in seeing what he would do as part of a full band.  And after seeing and being totally charmed by Sharon Van Etten’s  opening set, I was in the right mood to hear what they had to offer.

Of course, any talk about Junip kind of refers to it as Gonzalez branching out and starting a new band, when in fact, the band actually existed before his solo career (and apparently met through going to hardcore shows in Gothenburg) so really this is kind of a return to his roots.  Tom Petty did a similar sort of thing with his recent Mudcrutch project, so maybe this is becoming a trend.

So how did they sound?  Well, pretty much like Jose Gonzalez with a full band.  They had a similar sort of hypnotic vibe, but a bit spacier maybe courtesy of Tobias Winterkorn’s synthesizer work.  There was a definite 70s influence on their sound, and the persistent drumming added a touch of Can-style krautrock.  And they had conga drums too!  Everybody loves congas.  Or were they bongos?  Maybe both.  Either way, there was lots of percussion involved.  And if that wasn’t enough, they threw in a really solid cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost Of Tom Joad” near the end of their encore … although I have to wonder, does it really even count as an encore if you’re only gone from the stage for like 20 seconds?  Why not just stay onstage and forego the pretense, guys?   

Setlist: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/junip/2010/lees-palace-toronto-on-canada-53d567c9.html

Junip – Rope and Summit by sanfordco

Posted on by Paul in Concerts, Everything