Music

Best of 2010: Sarah F’n Wilbore’s Fave Albums and Shows

Posted on by sarahw in Albums, Concerts, Everything, Music | Leave a comment

2010 has been a pretty epic year musically.  It was difficult to narrow down my favourites.  But, without further ado, here are the top 5 albums and top 5 shows according to Sarah.

Top 5 Albums

Black Keys – Brothers

I was introduced to the Black Keys through this album, I subsequently acquired their entire substantial discography and have been in love ever since.  These guys have finally reached the proverbial pop culture tipping point with their tunes being featured in Gossip Girl, various commercials and even the theme song to Hung.  Go ahead, listen and try not to bop your head.  This album is infectious.

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Nightmare

There was so much hype behind this album I felt certain it would be a let-down.  To my surprise it is actually phenomenal.  This album is genre-bending, has superb musical guests (Jay-Z and Bon Iver) and samples music spanning multiple decades.  Kanye really knows how to please a crowd.

LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening

James Murphy has done it again.  I love this whole album but two stand-out tracks for me were Dance Yrself Clean and You Wanted a Hit. Oh and these guys ROCK live.

Four Tet – There is Love in You

Experimental electronic perfection.  My biggest regret is not seeing the Toronto leg of his tour.  Love Cry has got to my one of my top tracks of the year, so beautiful.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

I think I listened to this album from start to finish more than any other album this year.  That is all.

Top 5 Shows

Holy Fuck

These Canadians released their sophomore album Latin this year and followed up with amazing live show.  You have to see them live to experience all the unconventional ways these guys make music.

Yeasayer

Apparently Yeasayer wrote their latest album in Australia high on LSD.  Well keep it up boys.  Not only is their sound original, but their live show is pretty hypnotizing.

Thom Yorke

Having never seen Radiohead live I was pretty stoked to see the frontman at Coachella.  Thom does not disappoint, playing The Eraser in full plus a few Radiohead tracks he was definitely my favourite of the festival.  One of the best live voices I’ve heard.

The Wilderness

One of the most entertaining, energetic live performances I’ve seen.  Sparkly, dancey, theatrical oh and great music.  I would highly recommend their new album .272 and catching these guys live.

Mayer Hawthorne

Swoon.  I saw this motown crooner twice this year but his Wrongbar performance was by far the best.  Mayer has bounds of energy with an amazing falsetto to match.  I cannot wait for his next album, oh and check him out on Twitter…very entertaining!

And finally, in case you were wondering.  The single worst show of the year was Tame Impala.  Awesome record, terrible live.

London: The Other Kind Of Brit Pop

Posted on by Paul in Everything, Music | 1 Comment

London – We here at The Panic Manual have been known to dabble in Anglophilia.  Hell, Ricky and I came to London for the express purpose of seeing some British music live.  But our concepts of British music across the pond is a little different from the reality here in England.  If Music 4 is to be trusted (and we watched hours of it for some reason), what the kids are into in London these days is not your favourite new Britpop band, but rather some British pop.  As in Top 40 style pop music.  Yet as popular as this stuff seems to be, it’s totally off the radar back home.  I believe there’s a reason for that – these bands’ roles have already been filled by their North American counterparts.  They’re somewhat similar to other groups but … more British.  As John Travolta said in Pulp Fiction, “it’s the little things.”  (PS. In Britain, KFC serves breakfast.  Breakfast!)  But in the interest of expanding your cultural horizons, I’m gonna give you the low down on what these bands are all about as well as an approximation of who their counterparts would be in the North American music landscape.

Olly Murs

This guy is an alumnus of The X Factor, Simon Cowell’s other show.  He makes the kind of bouncy, smooth voiced pop that you’d expect from someone who gained fame as a contestant on a music competition show – pleasant and inoffensive, but not that interesting either.  Sonically, I’d say he comes closest to Maroon 5, but since he’s a solo artist, let’s say … I dunno, the British version of Jason Mraz or somebody like that.

The Wanted

Yup, they’re a boy band.  Also affiliated with The X Factor somehow, I’m sure they make young British girls swoon and everyone else cringe.  They’re basically the British Jonas Brothers, but there’s five of them, as is the standard for boy bands.  Also, one of them bears an uncanny resemblance to Frankie Muniz from Malcolm In The Middle.  Weird.

X Factor Finalists

No.  Just … no.  While nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be, this cover of Bowie’s “Heroes” by a bunch of the finalists from The X Factor (are you sensing a pattern here?) is still fairly bad.  At best, it’s mediocre.  Still, it’s been released as a charity single, so I guess I can’t be too mean.  I suppose their hearts are in the right place.  As far as North American equivalents, I guess it’s the Brit equivalent of Young Artists For Haiti doing “Waving Flag” – a charity single sung by a bunch of people who are mostly unknown outside their home country doing a vastly inferior cover version.  Although Young Artists For Haiti had Drake and Justin Bieber, whereas this one has that weird Malcolm In The Middle guy from The Wanted.  Still as a charity single, this one is still streets ahead of that one put out by Frank D’Angelo.

Pixie Lott

We first caught this young singer hosting a block of Christmas themed music videos called “Christmas Pixie” and then found out she was actually a singer and not just a TV host.  She’s young, cute and has a decent voice.  As pop singers go, she’s alright.  She’s probably closest to any number of Disney Channel-esque singers perhaps with a foot in some more credible RnB type sounds.  She might actually stand a chance of having some level of recognition outside The UK, although the closest she’s come to that so far is Nickelodeon’s Fred: The Movie, based on the terribly annoying and not at all funny Youtube character Fred Figglehorn.  It was a made for TV movie in the States, but because of Pixie’s popularity in England, this cinematic masterpiece gets a theatrical release that it doesn’t rightly deserve. 

N Dubz

N Dubz!  They’re the Brit version of The Black Eyed Peas, except with perhaps a bit more of a “tough” image.  They even have silly nicknames too, but instead of will. i. am., Fergie, and those other guys who nobody really knows the name of, it’s Fazer, Tulisa, and Dappy.  They’re also ridiculous and hilarious and I think I’m kind of obsessed with this band.  They sort of became the unofficial mascots (and running joke) of our trip.  They have their own reality show miniseries, Being N Dubz, which even had it’s own Christmas special and it’s all brilliant.   It’s kind of like a non fictional Spinal Tap or Ali G without the irony.  Brilliant.  I may be doing everything within my power to promote these guys.  Be afraid.

N-Dubz – Ouch by N-Dubz @ Soundcast

Concert Review: Suede, December 7th, O2 Arena

Posted on by Ricky in Concerts, Everything, Music | 8 Comments

London – What can you write about a concert featuring your favorite band singing 23 of your favorite songs and you are freaking close to the stage even though the show is at the cavernous O2 Arena (a place that has amusement park rides on the concourse). Suede at the O2 arena was amazing, it was as expected, my favorite show of the year and everything was amazing. Let’s start off with the set list:

This Hollywood Life
She
Trash
The Drowners
Animal Nitrate
We Are The Pigs
Pantomime Horse
By The Sea
Killing Of A Flashboy
Filmstar
Can’t Get Enough
Everything Will Flow
The Next Life
The Asphalt World
So Young
Metal Mickey
Heroine
The Wild Ones
New Generation
Beautiful Ones

Encore:
The Living Dead
To The Birds
Saturday Night

With the exceptions of Still Life and Europe is My Playground, everything I really wanted to hear was covered. It was an hour and forty five minutes of literally non stop singing action, as the Suede blazed from one song to another.

Let’s start from the beginning. I rarely ever go to arena shows. I have never even been to a show at the ACC, so imagine the look on the security guard’s face when I asked him if there was coat check. Haha. The O2 arena is set up nicely. There’s many restaurants everywhere for food. I kinda wish the ACC had that same setup. I got there at the end of the New Young Pony Club set, just enough time to hear The Bomb, which was all I really wanted to hear from them. We had lodged ourselves to the left of the stage not too far from the front, so the time in between the end of the NYPC set and the beginning of the Suede set was spent making sure no one got in front of us. The crowd was older as expected, but there were still a few younger kids in the crowd. Those kids have good taste.

At 9:15, the lights dimmed and a recording of Introducing the Band played over the soundsystem. The band soon emerged, dressed in all black and they launched into a vicious version of This Hollywood Life. Normally, I am not the biggest fan of that track, but tonight, it sounded so lively that you had no choice but to love it. As you would expect, the rest of the night was one big sing-a-long. Brett’s voice sounded great and he’s a great front man. Between his dancing, microphone twirling, call and response and dramatic singing, it made every song seems so much more epic. Songs like Pantomime Horse had an extra oomph to it, that had you thinking “yeah, there’s still some justine-damon resentment there”.

At 10:15, they played Asphalt World. So at 10:15pm on December 7th, 2010, I heard my favorite song ever live for the very first (and potentially last) time. I was a bit sad they cut it off after the four minute mark, but I didn’t expect them to play the whole ten minute version (or the Bernard version, I guess).

The 1-2 punch of New Generation and The Beautiful Ones was a great way to end off the initial set, as the former was a fist raising rauncher while the latterr inspired what might be the one of the greatest LA LA LA LA sessions of all time. You might make fun of Suede for all the Oooohhs they incorporate into their music, but at a show, those OOhhs are golden. GOLDEN.

All in all an amazing show. Paul went in a bit skeptical about the show and came out wanting to buy a t-shirt. For me, it’s something to be able to finally see a band you’ve loved for about twelve years. It’s something else to see them live and watch them kick ass. I’m not sure where Suede is going from here, but I’m hoping it’s a North America tour, since I can’t really afford to fly to England for these concerts all the time.

The Asphalt World by The London Suede

Concert Review: The Wilderness, Nov 20, Horseshoe Tavern

Posted on by sarahw in Concerts, Music, Reviews | 3 Comments

The Wilderness

Toronto – Google “The Wilderness” and all kinds of things pop up: a Wikipedia entry about the Civil War, conservation editorials, a Wilderness Summit video by David Suzuki, and the list goes on. Dig further into those results and you’ll  stumble upon an experimental rock group from Toronto.

Saturday was a big night for the Wilderness, playing at the Horseshoe Tavern and releasing their new album .272.  To be honest, before the show I’d only really heard their latest single, Realpolitik, which I liked instantly.

The Wilderness did not disappoint, one bit. They had quite an entertaining set: stage adorned with an over sized dream-catcher, audience armed with balloons, lead singer, Lee pouring glitter all over the front row keeners, interpretive dancers and surprise duets.  I’m sure as a band it’s annoying to be categorized and compared to predecessors, but I’m going to go ahead and do it.  I hear a mix of Editors, Joy Division and !!!.  Lee’s distinct Ian Curtis-esque voice meshes well with the band’s rock/electronic sound (think a cooler, deeper more experimental and talented version of The Killers).

The Wilderness had no problem getting the crowd to dance.  With help from the 4 interpretive dancers on stage, the crowd had whipped themselves into a frenzy by about the second song and with Lee’s help stayed that way until the end!

There is something to be said about a charismatic band front-man.  Lee has nailed the art of crowd participation, from peppering the audience with sparkles throughout the show to encouraging fans onto the stage for the encore, he is able to connect with a packed room which is no easy feat.

The Wilderness have an original sound, can engage a crowd like the pros and have managed to produce a tight album.  I can honestly say this was one of the most entertaining and passionate shows I’ve been to in a while and predict that this Toronto band won’t stay unsigned for long.

Check out the video I took of the encore: