The Antlers came through Toronto last night for the second time in less than two months. When they came back in July, opening for Frightened Rabbit, puzzled concert-goers had their index fingers shoved up their ears (me and my bleeding eardrums were intrigued). When they came back to the Horseshoe last night, this time as the headliner, it was clear they had established a legitimately strong fan base already. Throughout Holly Miranda’s set I heard multiple people buzzing about the Hospice release. They weren’t buzzing about how fuckable the lead singer was and they weren’t buzzing about an overplayed single. In otherwords, this was not what I would deem “scene buzz” akin to what I have seen at shows like Camera Obscura or Passion Pit. Audience members were actually talking about Hospice as an album and I doubt many of them were there because of Pitchfork approval despite the Horseshoe’s “BROOKLYN Pitchfork Approved Indie Hipster Rock” tagline (Pitchfork has officially become the equivalent of Roger Ebert’s “thumbs up” in the non-mainstream music world).
Couldn’t find any photos from the Horseshoe so here’s a still from chromewaves at Criminal Minds
Dude: I’ll take NEW MUSIC for $600 ALEX: And the answer is: The Mates Of State, The Kills, Matt & Kim and Little Foot Long Foot. Dude: Who are two piece bands that may or may not be dating? ALEX: You are correct
Last Friday night I hit up the Unsigned night down at Steam Whistle to see the two piece outfit from Toronto, Little Foot Long Foot. Front woman Joan Smith had the whole country vibe going on with her hard strumming rock and roll guitar sound. She kicked it on Friday night wearing a cute plaid sundress while Seth Rogen look-a-like, Isaac Klein, beat away on the drums behind her.
An issue I commonly hear with two pieces is a lack of range from song to song. Matt & Kim suffer from this, as do The Kills. In the case of Mates of State, they rely heavily on their vocals and have subtly switched up their instruments to adjust their sound. By the fifth song played by LFLF I’d got it. After that, the songs all kind of started sounding the same. I blame this on me not being familiar with their material prior to the show. Since purchasing a CD and listening to it, there are some stand out tracks. Tunes like June Bug and King Hipster will make you stand up and take notice. I’d like to see LFLF again knowing what I know now but on Friday night, yah, it all blended.
On another note, I believe that LFLF need an image consultant. In person they look like young country hipsters, their website has a 7 year old construction paper feel, their album art is a mix of some made up colonial vs. fairytale genre, and then there is their music which is gritty country rock. Please, pick one of the above and go with it. I was confused and distracted in doing my research.
Half an hour til midnight and Victoria Hesketh aka Little Boots had yet to take the stage at Wrongbar. The little Tenori-On on the side of the stage was slowly flashing the name Little Boots in it’s little dots and everyone was waiting..and waiting.
5 minutes later later, a tiny singer came out, the opening sounds of “Meddle” came on, and all the bitterness towards having to be at a late show on a Monday night was all forgotten. Last night’s fantastic display of pop music can be summarized by lyrics from Little Boot’s hit single New in Town:
I’m gonna take you out tonight
I’m gonna make you feel alright
The lyrics may not be scholarly worthy, but it is based on the premise of truth – going to a Little Boots show is going to make you feel alright. Ask anyone at the show last night. Armed with a drummer and a synth/effects guy, Little Boots played a very efficient and energetic set consisting of the songs off her debut album Hands as well as the Freddie Mercury cover Love Kills off the Buffet Libre compilation.
Having listened to the albums many times, the live versions of the songs definitely make you realize that most of these songs have some great anthem elements to them. Songs like “Earthquake” and “Symmetry” sounded much better (and more important) then their album counterparts due to the hyped up choruses in the live setting. Similarly, hit songs like “Remedy” and set closer “Stuck on Repeat” (with a drum/bass heavy extended intro) sounded like the dance floor classics you had expected.
All in all, a fantastic show.
*PS . Wrongbar, perhaps you should figure out an AC system that works + we don’t need a smoke machine.
Toronto – The last time I went to a concert featuring Swedish New Wavers The Sound, it was 2004 and they had been riding a large wave of popularity based on their hit song “Livng in America”. It was at Horseshoe and I remember the show being pretty good. I haven’t really followed the band since, so it was to a large surprise when a few days ago I was invited to see their show at the Phoenix on Sunday in promotion of their latest album – Crossing The Rubicon. I was surprised that
a) they are still around,
b) they have an album out
c) they could play the Phoenix, a medium size venue.
Well, it turns out that they probably couldn’t play the Phoenix, as it was also the same night of the MTV’s Video Music Awards. Normally, this wouldn’t effect most bands, but given the sound of the new material, perhaps a large demographic of the crowd missing was at home watching Kanye West make an ass of himself once again.
On to the concert – I arrived at 10:15 and was surprised to find that the Sounds were already on stage and had played around 3 songs already. The Phoenix was about half full, and I was amazed – I haven’t heard of the Sounds in so long, and here was this dedicated fan base singing along to every song they had. Who are these people? It was surprisingly an olderish crowd, but there were some younger people, even kids. I think I spent the first 1/2 hour of the concert trying to figure out what type of people The Sounds appealed to. I still haven’t figured it out. Yet, one thing is for sure, they have built up a dedicated fan base. Most people there knew the lyrics to most of the songs, and there were people who even danced to each track. I’m not talking about head bobbin, shoulder shakin concert dance, I mean all out “you are at a wedding with all your friends and an open bar kinda” dance. It was definitely interesting.
The band itself…well, the Sounds definitely look like a band. All the male band members are borderline anorexic and appear to spend about an hour fixing their hair every morning and lead singer Maja Ivarsson was wearing a tiny Adidas hoodie and really really really short shorts. As a lead, she was moderately engaging, often yelling out “Toooooooroonnnto” and telling everyone that she wanted to turn the concert into a dance floor. I guess given the fact that it was a Sunday night and the venue was half full, I would say she put in a concrete effort in her call and response routine. Gary thought she had two dance moves, but I couldn’t really figure out what was a dance move.
As for the tunes, well I would say this – I still think that “Living in America” is their top song, but I haven’t had a good chance to listen to other songs yet. I definitely am not a big fan of the slower numbers. The beginning of the set saw them comfortably settling into a MTV-esque pop rock genre of music, I could see any of those songs as part of a soundtrack on a show like “The Hills” where Lauren Conrad and Brody Jenner would exchange awkward stares at each other. Some of the lyrics are like:
Don’t want hurt you
Try not to fuck with your feelings
It’s just a matter of trust, for us, for lust
It just screams of something a 14 year old girl would post on her facebook status and then think of it as some sort of “deep” and “dark” poetry. I don’t know. At about the half an hour mark, I was more or less ready to leave and go home and watch the rest of the Green Bay/Chicago game. There was a brief smoking break for the band at this point, and perhaps feeling the non-enthusiasm of the crowd, the band came back on to the stage and played a bunch more new wavy-synth drenched rock, which I have to say, I enjoyed a decent amount.
Overall, it was a mixed bag of a concert for me, the early part was a bit dull, but the last bit of the 90 minute set was some new wave goodness. Everyone else in the crowd seemed to have a good time, and really, that is probably all that matters.
