Toronto – First things first, let’s talk about clothing. I suspected it before but I am now absolutely sure that Besnard Lakessinger/guitarist Jace Lasek only wears the same two or three black cowboy shirts over and over again. Or he has a closet full of nearly identical shirts. Who knows. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of clothing, bassist Olga Goreas was dressed kind of like Wednesday Adams onstage. And occasionally sunglasses for some reason (or perhaps as a nod to openers Suuns, she wore suunglasses). The look kind of works for her I guess.
And now a few words on Suuns, who put on a pretty interesting show. They were weird, experimental, noisy, dancey (oh, the bass!) and definitely pretty good. They incorporate a wide variety of influences into their sound, and it mostly blends together pretty seamlessly. There were a couple moments where the stylistic changes in tone and tempo from song to song were not quite as smooth, but they certainly held my attention. I’d be interested in seeing them again.
As the Besnard Lakes took to the stage, an excerpt from (I believe) an old Carl Sagan speech played, becoming increasingly distorted as the last few words played in a loop. It set the right mood, bringing to mind all things cosmic and spacey. And The Besnard Lakes can get pretty spacey when they want to. Pretty loud too. Above all the volume, Lasek and Gorea’s vocals shone through. One of the highlights of their set was “Disaster.” As Lasek launched into his falsetto vocals, I overheard two separate people behind me saying, “I love this song.” His performance was all the more impressive when he later revealed that he was actually quite sick during the show. It wasn’t too noticeable as he seemed to be in pretty good spirits all night, although once he mentioned it, I did start to notice it a bit. During a pause in one of their last songs,he seemed to lose his place for a second. Then he did it again. A few megafans up front loudly helped him to count it in. It’s good to know that people have your back sometimes.