Dinosaur Bones Promo Photo
Toronto – Let me describe the weirdness of going to The Bait Shop for a concert. First off, the place is damn difficult to find; it’s listed as 358 Dufferin Street, but if you happen to find the building with the sign that says 358 Dufferin Street, it’s definitely not The Bait Shop. If you do happen to go down the right alleyway and find the door, inside is an indoor skate park with a little half-pipe. For CMW, the concert stage was at the top of one end of the half-pipe, with some patrons standing in the bowl, and the rest, like myself, up on the balcony above, which runs perpendicular to the “stage” and features terrible sightlines of what’s going on below, requiring one to lean way over the crowded railing to see anything.
Despite this being an afternoon CMW show at a skate shop, where you might expect the kiddies to be out in full force, I felt largely at home in the crowd. It was only about one-third 19 year olds, who couldn’t help but run up and down the sides of the pipe, one-third hipsters, who hung out near the bar for the Pabst Blue Ribbon, the only beer they had, and who mostly ignored Dinosaur Bones while waiting for the Russian Futurists to start, and one-third bloggers and people with big cameras there on media passes.
With things running about forty minutes behind the posted schedule when I arrived at 4:30, Toronto’s Dinosaur Bones fired off an enthusiastic set starting around 4:55 that featured lots of photo-worthy jumping off things. To me, Dinosaur Bones sounds rather like your basic loud indie band. There’s certainly things to like about their sound, which didn’t really come through that well at the Bait Shop, what with the bass and drums cranked up so loud they drowned out the vocals and the venue forgetting to turn off the house music for the first half of their set. I do sometimes wish that the younger indie set listened to a bit more Hot Snakes or Drive Like Jehu in their formative years (I’ll bet you never thought we could reference Drive Like Jehu twice in less than a week, did you?); doing so would probably do Dinosaur Bones some good. Much like Ricky did when he reviewed Dinosaur Bones in January, I think they’re in need of a bit more polish and a real defining song to build their setlist around, but there’s definitely something there. You can check them out at SXSW if you are so inclined and have the opportunity.
Next up, The Russian Futurists took the stage for a slightly more introspective set. I like The Russian Futurists; with lead singer and songwriter Matthew Adam Hart up front along with a female vocalist, a keyboardist, a bassist and a drummer, at their best they have a bit of a Stars vibe to them, only without an electric guitar and with the female voice doing more backup than lead. Her voice was nearly impossible to make out over the keys, though she did come through pretty well on “Let’s Get Ready to Crumble,” probably the high point of the set. Hart has an easygoing, self-effacing manner on-stage that played well between songs, particularly just before the set closer, when he told everyone to “clear the pipe, ’cause at the end of this song I’m going to shred it.” This is a band I didn’t know too well going in but who’s body of work I’m going to give a listen to.
Dinosaur Bones: 
The Russian Futurists: 
