Toronto – Before attending The Twilight Sad’s recent show at Lee’s Palace, I was a bit curious as to how the material from their latest, the synth-heavy No One Can Ever Know, would translate live. As it turns out, it translated quite well and in fact, ended up blending in pretty well with their older material.
A series of harsh, beeping synth sounds signalled the band’s entrance, and also made me wonder whether there was an ancient computer nearby into which I should be entering the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42. Any such fantasies quickly dissipated as the band took to the stage. Instead, I was immediately reminded of the fact that I had forgotten to bring any earplugs. Yup, these guys get loud. The band seemed pretty stoked to be playing there, with singer James Graham telling the crowd how much they appreciated us coming out and also tweeting before the show about the fact that they were playing the same venue Scott Pilgrim played.
Graham gave a typically intense performance, despite his powerful voice occasionally coming close to being drowned out by the band. Although, come to think of it, everything sounded a bit better once i stepped back a bit from the front of the stage, so maybe it was just me. And my lack of earplugs.
Speaking of volume, openers Odonis Odonis are also capable of making a bit of a racket. They played a brand of arty noise punk that kind of reminded me of bygone days when I was more involved in checking out bands in the local scene. The band recently played one of the Wavelength 12th Anniversary shows, which totally makes sense. If Wavelength was still a regular ongoing thing, Im sure they would have played it several times already by this point.
On a side note, this show happened on the day that Davy Jones died and so, I spent my time at home before the show listening to The Monkees. It occurred to me as I did so that The Twilight Sad could probably totally kill with a noise drenched cover of “Daydream Believer.” Probably not likely to happen anywhere except in my head though, but damn, does it sound good in there.
The Twilight Sad and Odonis Odonis will both be playing at various times and places during SXSW in Austin. If you’re there, check ’em out.