Concert Review: Foals, Sept 27, Lee’s Palace

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Ricky in Concerts, Everything | 6 Comments

Toronto – Last night’s Foals was an unexpected dose of awesomeness that sparked up an otherwise dull Monday night. In case you haven’t heard, Foals is an Oxford 5 piece post-punk dance rock band that have garnered much hype and fans within their two album existence. Their latest album, Total Life Forever was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize and is among the contenders for album of the year. They were in town Monday night to play to a sold out show at Lee’s Palace. I managed to score a ticket the day of the show.

What can you say about a Foals show? It’s a freakin riot. Given their album’s penchant for driving percussive beats and the youngish crowd in the audience, I asked my friend Jess if there would be a mosh pit to which she replied “maybe”. Immediately after the band took the stage and launched in the song Total Life Forever, I realized that a mosh pit was inevitable. These guys were here to rock out.

Let’s talk about their equipment. These guys had wireless guitars! Amazing! I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen this at a small show. Why don’t other bands utilize this? The wireless guitar allowed Yannis Philippakis to wander through the crowd throughout the set and well, to say that Yannis wandered during the set last night was an understatement. At one point, he was standing on the bar at the end of Lee’s Palace, playing his guitar. He could have stopped and grabbed a burrito he was so far back. Speaking of the dude, Foals have quite an intense stage presence. Yannis treads the line of “dirty rocker who can be unexpectedly violent” very well, and that edge added a layer of intensity to the show and a bit of electricity in the air.

However, let’s get back to the equipment. As the set wore on, guitarists Jimmy Smith’s equipment started breaking down. First, it was his amp, then guitar, then amp, then guitar or something in that order. As the equipment started to malfunction, the bands mood changed and they just got angrier and angrier. However, with each equipment failure, the show got increasingly intense, and as a result, the crowd got increasingly rowdier. At one point, Yannis delivered one of the best kicks I have seen at a show. The poor microphone stand didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know if that mic worked after it. It was pretty cool. All this leads me to this conclusion:

To my surprise, a lot of the set focused on their debut record Antidotes with some sprinklings here and there from Total Life Forever. I guess it didn’t matter in the end as each song was hammered with the driving beats from drummer Jack Bevan. Spanish Sahara was as epic as you expected it to be and songs like Olympic Airways and Cassius gave the enthusiastic crowd reason to jump around. Hell, I would argue any song was good enough reason to jump around.

In conclusion, the show was unexpectedly awesome. The energy from both the band and the crowd was inspiring for a Monday night and anyone who thinks Toronto concert goers are just a bunch of swaying crossed arm deadbeats should attend a Foals show the next time they are in town.

Ps. A big thank you to Lee’s Palace for turning on the A/C halfway through the show.

Total Life Forever
Olympic Airways
Miami
Blue Blood
Balloons
After Glow
2 Trees
Alabaster
Spanish Sahara
Red Socks Pugie
Electric Bloom

Encore:
The French Open
Two Steps, Twic

Foals – Spanish Sahara by subpop

Classic Song Review: These Things Happen – Action Painting! [1990, Sarah Records]

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Allison in Article Series, Classic Albums | 1 Comment

I’ve gotten a bit lazy with the full on Classic Album Reviews lately, so today I’m giving you a truncated version by doing a classic song review. I might do this with a few forgotten songs.

Action Painting! was a Sarah Records band coming out of Brighton that is apparently unworthy of even a Wikipedia page. Sarah Records is yet another anomaly demonstrating the superior tastes of the late 80’s U.K., probably best known for being the label that launched The Field Mice. I don’t think that Action Painting! ever released a full-length before disintegrating into mysterious musical spores, but These Things Happen is a residual of my mid-90’s mix tape trading days (Mark’s recent post about the evolution of sound mediums prompted me to remember what a big part of my life these once were). In 1995 and 1996 I had one of those goofy personal Geocities deals where I would talk about band I liked and shows I’d been to (a 15-year precursor to the blogs of today that I think a lot of bored kids imbibed in).

Little did I know, the thirst for taste comradery was rampant. Not just amongst dumb teenagers like myself, but amongst older people too (again, the widespread use of MP3 sharing has changed all that). People started emailing me asking to tape trade, and message boards were full of people wanting to do the same. Making a first mix tape for someone you don’t know is really just a shot in the dark, but after a few rounds, would become a refined exchange. You get a handle and feel for what someone might like, and you’re usually right. It’s a musical pen pal program, and unbeknownst to me at the time, would become have huge impact in shaping my tastes. Maybe it’s because there was more of a “here you go” pretext instead of a hard flog. Action Painting! was on one of these tapes along with bands like Sea & Cake, Orange Juice, Husker Du, Mission of Burma, Galaxie 500, Slowdive, the Go-Betweens, American Music Club, Greg Sage and the Wipers, and Half String. For the record, the guy who gave me the best series of tapes was a linguistics professor in Scotland.

What makes These Things Happen a classic song? It has a bright shininess that never seems to fade, and is in that category of songs that I can listen to around 20 consecutive times on repeat and still never ever tire of. There is a crystal clear simplicity I hear in the music that has nothing to do with the lyrics (which could lump it into that category of apology love songs)…it’s an uncomplicated little composition with some sweet acoustic guitar strumming, but is elegant just the same.

Have to listen here.

Concert review: The Watchmen with Birds of Wales [Horseshoe tavern, September 25, 2010]

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Gary in Concerts | 1 Comment

Toronto – Ever go to a concert and feel like it’s in fact a costume party? This Saturday night certainly seemed like one. The Watchmen obviously have some inner strengths, not least being emotive singing. But unless you have been sleeping for the past decade, both Joey Serlin and Daniel Greaves now sport sleek and edgy bald looks. I counted no less than 20 other guys who share this fashion sense at the Watchmen’s reunion show when I walk in, and more over the length of the night. Granted, it’s not something rare. We’re not talking about a Halloween party where everyone caught the flu at work and decided independently that it would be original to have green snot hanging from their noses collectively. And it is edgy – I wish I have the wherewithal. It’s just hilarious to wonder how many hair-styles the Watchmen inspired. Was it just some freak coincidence, or is it a generational trait that we’re all becoming old men? Maybe I should do the same. Oh, wait, I need a job first…

Birds of Wales was on the stage when I strolled in from the 12C fall evening. It was a nice, calming walk. You might expect BoW’s frontman Morgan Ross to share the same sedated feeling – after all, he and his crew hailed all the way from Queen/Ossington. As soon as I found the left side bar of Horseshoe, I knew this wasn’t going to be the case. Ross’s stage presence can be described as energetic – if that term also applies to beagles on Redbull. He constantly addresses the audience, stopping for 30 sec or more between songs to ask for half-emptied beer bottles, over-head claps, Saturday nights over Monday mornings, and what-not. While his band mates don’t share this expressiveness, they were also very glad to be playing. So the Birds of Wales built up a lot of positivity for this set – they got points in my book for it. I can’t say that their music is my cup of tea… and in no way would I relate them to Coldplay. When played live, it’s even more of a cross between folk/country and pop-rock than on myspace. The lyrics isn’t anything to pour over, either: “24, turning 25. All my friends are getting married, settling down with families. Maybe someday. But not just yet.” But the beats catches easily and it’s quite fun to foot-tap along. The Birds of Wales took their bow after around 40 minutes, and the crowd hunkered down with their beers for what Ross promised them in between every song.

At this juncture, I was standing right in front of the sound system at the right side. The Watchmen came on and opened with what sounded like Incarnate. This is when I realized a deja vu from 10 years ago when I went to Placebo – my ear drums felt literally like they were underwater. Horseshoe is usually conscientious – but I guess the Watchmen deserved their turn to blast out loud. By the 2nd song, I could feel the pressure waves coming in my right temple and shooting out the left, with reflections bouncing in my noodle. I thought of Russell Peters’ “mind-blasting”, and retreated – my lens would have been mis-aligned, too. Beside the soundboard, the concert became manageable again. I could hear Greaves’ howl in Zoom, the softer singing in Brighter Hell. I think they also played Falling. Of course, I also heard everyone sang along during All Uncovered and Any Day Now, which was honestly what I had hoped to hear anyway. Mind you, this is from far back in the house. I was lucky if I caught a glimpse of any one of the them – mostly I just saw the infamous Horseshoe post, or Ken Tizzard’s cowboy hat. Tizzard and Serlin seemed to like to play with their backs toward the crowd – I saw that a couple of times and was quite amused. Overall, though, I couldn’t fight the feeling that I was back in Edmonton. It was a nostalgic night, not always for the best reasons. But good enough for a Saturday.

Birds of Wales:
The Watchmen:

Concert Review: Midlake, Rogue Wave, September 24, The Opera House

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Paul in Concerts, Everything | 2 Comments

Toronto – In our preview of this show, I mentioned my hopes that Midlake would have a flute onstage.  As the photo above indicates, they not only utilized the flute on several songs, but even featured two flautists on occasion.  Thus I was satisfied with the show.  What can I say, I’m a fan of flutes.  Jethro Tull totally rules by the way.

Midlake have been compared to Grandaddy in the past and while there are some similarities, they have certainly developed their own sound.  If anything, I’d say they sound like Grandaddy would if Jason Lytle was way more into British folk rock acts like Fairport Convention and Pentangle than he was into ELO.  Musically, their set consisted mostly of gentle, mid tempo folk rock, but each song had a sort of propulsiveness to it that seemed to demand the audiences attention.  And there were a couple of searing guitar solo freakouts thrown in for good measure too.   All of the members are ridiculously talented musicians and they seem like pretty likeable guys onstage.  Humble too – in response to loud cheering from the crowd, guitarist Eric Pulido responded, “You’re being far too kind to us.”

Speaking of crowd response, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the overexuberant Midlake superfan who anyone near the stage couldn’t help but notice.  Standing right up front and getting really stoked from the getgo, this excitable fellow got on my nerves during the first song of the set, “Winter Dies,” when he shouted “MIDLAKE!!!!”  at the top of his lungs.  Dude, calm down, you are not at a monster truck rally or a Pantera concert.  I was worried that he might detract from my enjoyment of the show, but as the set went on, he settled into an acceptable level of enthusiasm. 

With their solid musicianship and great songs, Midlake put on a solid set, the highlights being  “Roscoe.” “Head Home,” and “Acts of Man.”  As they finished, I was left wondering why they were the openers and not the headliners.  Apparently a lot of other people agreed with me as the crowd thinned out a bit before Rogue Wave’s headlining slot.  This is unfortunate for Rogue Wave as they did put on a pretty good, high energy show (at least for the part of their set that I stayed for.  Yes, I too left early).  They played a set of happy sounding, bouncy, power poppish tunes that I couldn’t really fault.  Technically, they’re good at what they do and I did enjoy the pink skull design and lights that covered their amps and gear, but something about them left me kind of underwhelmed. 

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