Concerts

Concert Review: Police, Nov 8, ACC

Posted on November 14, 2007 by guestwriter in Concerts | 3 Comments

Toronto – I went to the Police concert. I bought the tickets ages ago despite the scrutiny of my friends who wondered if I was secretly stuck in the 70s or 80s – which I might be just a little. This was the third time they were playing in a span of a year as part of the reunion tour. The first two concerts had been sold out so I ended up at their 3rd of 4 shows. What’s interesting is that the first two shows were sold out when they performed earlier this year at the ACC but the shows in November were definately not sold out. The hefty price of $70 got me into the nosebleeds and had me considering selling the tickets and that’s how I found out that the tickets weren’t even sold out and that people were selling their tickets below cost. Anyway, I bribed my friend to come with me so I wasn’t going to the concert by myself.

I’m not a fan of the big venues as it compromises the intimacy with the band and the sound that I associate with a live concert but I gotta give it to Sting, he sounded amazing. The rest of the band looked a little tired and should definately consider lessons from their fearless leader and practise some Yoga. They played viagra no prescription a solid 2 hours and that’s probably reason enough for me not to be scrutinizing those old men. I was really impressed and surprised – I used to think that Sting is a bit too showy and having read interviews with him and seen some on TV as well, I thought he was cocky but he proved me wrong. He could have just stood there the entire night and he would still have given off an aura of cool not to be mistaken with my initial impression of cocky or arrogant. He really has an amazing voice that sounds fantastic live and I hate to admit this but he’s hot for an old man.

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Athlete, November 13, Richards on Richards

Posted on November 13, 2007 by Vik in Concerts | 1 Comment

athlete

Vancouver, Perhaps my final show of the year and my first visit to the legendary Richards on Richards. I gotta say, for what Vancouver lacks in decent shows, they definitely make up for it in nice looking venues. I expected RNR to be a large dingy venue, much like the Phoenix in Toronto. I was pleasantly surprised to find a well maintained venue with great sightlines (floor and balcony) and a unique layout. The stage is tucked away into a corner with plenty of room for people who want to stand/dance/sway or just sit and talk. We got there in time to catch the last few song of the opening act The Mohawk Lodge. They sounded okay, typical Canadian indie rock. They had a cool looking t-shirt on the cheap so I picked one up.

I gotta give props to opening acts man. For the fans that are just there to watch the headliner, most come in with the preconviced notion that the opener isn’t that good and just talk loud and don’t pay attention when the openers are playing, as was the case with The Mohawk Lodge. Didn’t seem to faze them though.

After a riduculously long 40 minute sound check, the young lads from Athlete sauntered onto stage (side note, I think a ‘roadie’ mini game in Gutar Hero or Rock Band would be cool, sound check all the instruments within a time limit) and busted open with ‘Tokyo’. Great tune too get the crowd primed. I’m not a big fan of their latest album, it sounds like alot of pop rock being released nowadays (*cough* Keane *cough* Coldplay). It’s tough not to assume bands go this route in order to sell records as opposed to playing what they want to play. ‘Vehicle and Animals’ however, was fantastic as it did have a unique sound for it’s time. In particular I was looking forward to hearing ‘El Salvador’ but instead got ‘You Got the Style’ and ‘Vehicle and Animals’ which was still nice. The 600+ crowd was well into the entire show and singers onstage bono-esque antics, which he manged to pull off considering the stage was probably only 10ft x 10ft.

Despite Athlete recently releasing a new album, it was nice to get a mix of all their entire catalogue throughout the set.

Oh, and the drummer looks like Kevin Smith

3.5/5

Setlist-ish (I’m going off memory here):

Tokyo
You Got the Style
Tourist
Airport Disco
Hurricane
Yesterday Threw Everything at Me
Best Not to Think About it
Half Light
Westside
It’s Not Your Fault
Wires
Shake Those Windows
Vehicles and Animals
24 Hours

The Go! Team, November 1, Phoenix

Posted on November 2, 2007 by Ricky in Concerts, Everything | 1 Comment

Toronto – The Go Team. What can you say about them..really? I guess the main ingredient when going to a Go! Team concert is fun. These guys put on a really fun song. In case you don’t know who the go team is, they are a six piece band from England, consisting of two drummers, and some people who play other instruments. The lead singer is some black girl named Ninja, and they also have two japanese people in the band. I don’t know why I mentioned that. What do they sound like? Think happy, and think early 80s saturday morning cartoon theme songs. It is kind hard to describe their sound, its really a mish mash of stuff. Here’s a youtube video of their song Ladyflash:

The show was at the Phoenix, which I have probably ranted before. Actually sooner then later, I will post a ‘Toronto Concert Venue Review’ post or something. The crowd was pretty ramped up for this band, I was disappointed to find out Spiral Beach opened, since I like that band. I might have even caught them if I did not have a soccer game before hand. Funny thing, as I was lining up at the door, the girl in front of me asked the security guard why they always put the 19 and over wrist band on the right hand. He replies ‘its so if we see a wristband on the left hand, we know something fishy is going on.’ Sure enough, as I was entering the adults only section of the phoenix, there was a girl, trying to get in with the wrist band on her left hand. BUSTED. So a lesson to all you underage kids. if you are going to try to get in the drinking zone, pay attention to details.

It always amuses me when I am walking around and I see teenagers wearing like 100 dollar hoodies and 200 dollar jeans. I’m like..damn where the hell do they get that money from?

Anyways, the Go! Team came on around 10:30. Sweet. No video screen (like the show from two years ago), but it was replaced by the two drums having different colored lamps on it. The team immediately started off with some song off the first album. Man, let me tell you something. That girl Ninja can GO. I mean, she can dance for the entire hour and not shed a sweat. The entire band seemed into it, I guess it was the last show of the tour so they gave it their all. However, the star of the show was clearly this lead singer. Man she got moves, and grooves. They aint lying when they say black peeps got them rhythms.

The set consisted of songs off both the new and old albums, I would give you song titles, but you can pretty much just look up the track listings and it’ll provide the same effect. I honestly don’t think this band could put on a band show, their music is just so damn happy feely and they got that “cute” stage presence. The set ended with the double punch of LadyFlash/Huddle Formation before the encore introduced the crowd to new album tune do it right and some other song whos title escapes me.

All in all, excellent show and the crowd was really into it, which pleases me.

4/5

CD Review – Julie Doiron / Woke Myself Up (2007)

Posted on October 28, 2007 by Wade in Albums, Concerts, Everything | 1 Comment

julie

Growing up on the east coast, Eric’s Trip (1990 – 1996) is a bit of an institution. Julie Doiron (bass, guitar, vocals) was one of the original members of this Moncton based, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., influenced band. I remember seeing quite a few Eric’s Trip t-shirts when I was in high school but remained unaware of their east coast/Canadian cult status at the time. Yah, the cool kids definitely knew about Eric’s Trip. I did not. They also gained some serious points for being the first Canadian band signed to Sub Pop in the early 90’s.

Eric’s Trip is Julie Doirons’ backing band on “Woke Myself Up”. After my first listen I classified this CD as a pretty good wood, wires and whisky CD with a slightly lo-fi rock feel, especially on the track Don’t Wannabe/Liked By You. The rest of the CD is pretty standard singer songwriter tracks, but lyrically the songs are different. I feel like they were written by a 30 year old woman who is still attending high school. She has all the typical high school problems with love and friends, but she faces each of them with a ‘big deal, I’m still awesome’ attitude because she has experience under her belt.

One of the reasons I picked this up was because of her Polaris Music Prize nomination earlier this year. I don’t hear anything ground breaking on this CD that would have won her this prize, but it is still worth a listen.

I also picked it up because Julie lives in Sackville, NB. For those who don’t know, Sackville is the trucker hat a la 2001 of New Brunswick. It’s a cool spot. Sackville is a very important place in New Brunswick because to most people, the letters NB simply represent the province you need to drive through to get to Halifax (or PEI).

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