Toronto – You know, Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles is a pretty funny guy at times. Early in their set, an audience member shouted out, “I love your beard!” Stickles’ reply: “Thanks. this next song is about what’s going on behind that beard. All will be revealed.” He’s an interesting character, the sort who’ll ask an audience if their needs are being met tonight or announce guitarist/violinist Amy Klein’s recent purchase of some guitar pedals (and then go on to explain what pedals are for “any laymen in the crowd”) He’s a pretty engaging frontman.
Based on previous reviews of their shows as well as comments Stickles made about “respecting personal space” and how they had to adjust their setlists for the last couple shows (but not for us), it seems that a Titus Andronicus crowd can get a tad rowdy. This crowd was pretty into it, and a bit rowdy, but not too much so … although i swear I saw a beer bottle go flying into the crowd during their set. And there were multiple occurences of crowd surfing, which is something I just don’t see enough of these days. So, OK, maybe it was a pretty rowdy crowd. But mostly in a nice way.
The audience was enjoying themselves, and the band certainly appeared to be having just as much fun onstage. They had a raw, ramshackle sort of vibe, while at the same time demonstrating that they’re all great musicians. This was especially evident during the third last song, “Titus Andronicus Forever,” which saw each and every member of the band, plus members of openers Hallelujah The Hills, taking a solo. Hallelujah The Hills, by the way, also put on a really good show.
For those who haven’t heard them (and really, why haven’t you?), I would probably describe Titus Andronicus as sounding like The Replacements meets Against Me! meets Conor Oberst (with of course, a whole whack of other influences thrown in there too). They play the kind of meat and potatoes rock that’s practiced by a number of bands these days, including fellow New Jersey-ites (New Jersians?) The Gaslight Anthem ,who were also playing a show in town that night. Stickles thanked us for picking them as our Jersey-rock choice for the night and dedicated a song to those who had a hard time deciding. When a few people booed The Gaslight Anthem, Stickles jokingly said, “OK, this is dedicated to nobody then.”
Full of mostly upbeat choruses and shouted gang vocals, the dedicated fans in attendance couldn’t help but sing along, as people belted out “You will always be a loser!” along with Stickles during “No Future Part Three.” (Casual fans, however, might have felt the show was a bit too long, but hey, these guys have several songs that run over eight minutes, so you should have known what you were getting into.) Also ripe for singalong material was the band’s cover of Weezer’s “The Sweater Song,” which saw them inviting former guitarist and current Toronto resident Liam Betson to join them onstage. They closed off with the epic “The Battle Of Hampton Roads” from their Civil War referencing album The Monitor. Axl Rose once sang, “I don’t need your civil war.” But Axl Rose sucks now, so who cares what Axl thinks? Go listen to Titus Andronicus instead.
Toronto – That’s right, this concert was so good we’re reviewing it twice. And since Allison did all the hard work of actually writing about the details of the show, I can go off on bizarre tangents and whatnot.
Wayne Coyne is a cosmic prophet of peace and love and good times. I think the man may have special powers. Among these powers is the ability to somehow slow down time so that one song feels like an entire show. Seriously, after the barrage of confetti, balloons, Wayne in the space bubble, and the magically delicious music, I realized after they played “The Fear” that it was only the first song. It felt like at least 3 songs. It was like the opposite of “time flies when you’re having fun” and more like “time stops when you’re having fun and Wayne Coyne uses his mystical wizard powers to shunt you into a pocket dimension where time has no meaning.”
Speaking of time, I will now fold time back upon itself and talk about the opening acts. I arrived during Tokyo Police Club’s set. I think I caught most of it. They were good, but didn’t seem quite suited to playing such a large venue. That said, they put on a pretty high energy show. Too bad they played to kind of a sparse crowd. Spoon were up next and while their stage show was nowhere near as flashy as that of The Flaming Lips, they made up for that in songcraft. Tunes such as “I Summon you,” “I Turn My Camera On,” “Don’t Make Me A Target,” and well, pretty much every song came across great live, even if Britt Daniel didn’t shoot lasers from his eyes while unicorns popped out of oversized wedding cakes. (Note to Flaming Lips: you can totally use those ideas for your next show. I don’t need the credit, seeing cake unicorns in action is thanks enough) They didn’t play “Got Nuffin,” which is one of my favourites from Transference, but I’m willing to let that one slide.
And now back to the adventures of the wizard Wayne Coyne and his band of sonic adventurers. Speaking of wizardry, I began to imagine during their set that Coyne was in fact the great and powerful Oz as I watched his giant head projected onstage behind him. “Pay no attention to that man on stage! He’s not singing, I am! And I can stop time! And summon caterpillar kings and catfish cops and guys in bear suits!” Either that, or Wayne Coyne is Big Brother. Big Brother is watching you … but he’s cool. And he’s smiling. If Wayne Coyne was in charge of Oceania, Winston Smith might not have had a reason to rebel. And Room 101 would be full of videos of naked ladies dancing. Oh, and everyone, I mean everyone, would be wearing orange.
Coyne may be an all powerful being in contol of space and time, but even he can’t stop the war in Iraq. “We know that playing a song isn’t gonna end a war,” he said by way of introduction to a lovely rendition of “Taps” that the band played near the end of the set. But he did encourage the entire crowd to form peace signs and raise them in the air so as to “shoot energy” out into the cosmos or something. It was like we were all part of some awesome magical ritual. I’d like to believe that we did all shoot some energy out of our fingers. Sure it didn’t end a war, but I’m certain it made the world a better place somehow. A place full of confetti and balloons and good vibes.
I’m officially bogarting this review. You heard me right, I’m bogarting this review, which is something I have never ever done in my life before. You’re witnessing history here, folks. I’m clamoring to write about something that does not specifically benefit my self-interested bludgeoning. I’m bogarting something that is not a beer or a j.
Wait.
Scratch that. Seeing as last night’s Flaming Lips show completely blew away anything I could have previously imagined in terms of concert theatrics, showmanship, and the lustre of Wayne Coyne, this is the precise definition of self-interested bludgeoning.
Two words describe the Flaming Lips’ set: HOLY FUCK. I have never seen them live before, and as much hype as you have heard about them, nothing can possibly prepare you for seeing it yourself, up close and personal. Even if you have seen them 100 times before, I can’t imagine sitting back and not being set on fire by the enthusiasm Wayne Coyne ignited last night. I’m going to run through the elements of why this show was so awesome, despite being environmentally unfriendly:
CONFETTI CANONS:
As someone who is often satisfied with the most lo-fi things in life, the special effects strewn throughout this show was a sensory overload What’s not to like about confetti canons? They make a satisfying cork pop sound, awesome shit flies out everywhere and lands on you. Some poor grounds person ends up having to sweep up tons of shit. It’s a win-win-win situation.\
LIGHTSHOW SCREEN:
A ginormous light show screen served as an awesomely bizarre Clockwork Orange-like backdrop throughout the night. Coyne had a camera strapped to his microphone that was projected on the screen inbetween giant dancing topless ladies, vaginas, vulvas, births, intercourse, bunnies, and anything else you can think of.
CONFETTI-FILLED BALLOONS:
Dozens of brightly coloured giant balloons floated throughout the audience, reminding me of a gum ball in a dryer paradise. The most joyous part of this whole display was when the balloons volleyed over to someone who would pop it, exploding into a happy confetti show within a confetti show.
SPACE BUBBLE:
The entrance that these guys make is absolutely outrageous in the best possible way. We were treated to a giant vagina pounding on a giant screen before each band member rolled out on a platform board. Coyne got tossed around in his legendary space bubble all over people who got floor tickets, while instructing them to squish super close together so that he could roll around like an American Gladiator. If you need any further confirmation that Wayne Coyne is a performance God, look no further than his efforts in his space bubble.
ENTHUSIASM:
You would think that after 27 years of recording and performing and 2006’s Virgin Festival abortion, Wayne Coyne and company would be more jaded than the decade that made them famous. You would be a complete fucking fool to think so, though, because this man showed more love and enthusiasm towards us than anyone you can imagine. This is a man who is on the brink of turning 50 years old, and has more bright-eyed optimism than any 3 year old I know. There wasn’t a moment where he wasn’t trying to fist pump us into a pogo-sticking screaming frenzy. And it worked. This is mob mentality done right.
INTIMACY / CONNECTION:
If last night’s concert was the equivalent of a man and my first date with him, I’d be so under his flashy spell that he might be able to con me out of all of my assets in a day and a night. Wayne Coyne did everything in his power to get everyone scream-singing along at the top of their lungs, making various helicopter, weather, and animal noises to I Can Be A Frog, and clapping in unison. We had many conversations with Wayne that night, some involving love (“If you give love, you never have to worry about being loved.”), some involving world peace (“I want everyone to make a peace sign and direct it up into the air, shooting it anywhere for peace somewhere”), some involving dreams (“Have you ever had a dream, only to think you weren’t having a dream? Or thought you were awake, only to think you were dreaming?”), some involving the Bush Administration (“This song is about turning all of the hatred and frustration we had about George W. Bush and channeling it into our support for Barack Obama”), some involving the consumption of weed (“I smell a lot of weed tonight. Let’s pretend that in this section of the city, the Mayor of Toronto has legalized marijuana”).
In other words, there’s nothing Coyne wasn’t willing to share with us last night. Looking at his grinning face whenever he received scream-metre love back, and how genuinely touched he was (“You know hearing that sound, is the greatest sound anyone can ever hear”). It’s easy to fall in love with Wayne Coyne as a performer and a person. I don’t know shit all about him as a person, but I’m going to pretend everything I know about his surrealist, art-loving self is real and true. He has the dreamboat qualities of a real capital M Man. With longish curly hair and a full man beard to boot…yep, I’m completely smitten.
GIANT HANDS:
Giant hands that shot out green lasers onto ginormous twin disco balls. Need I say more?
SING-ALONGS:
As anyone who has sat in the back seat of my parents’ vehicle before when a Fleetwood Mac song has been playing knows, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a good sing-along. The only show I can think of that, MIGHT surpass this one in terms of singing along would be the Violent Femmes show I went to back in ’98. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Do You Realize?, She Don’t Use Jelly, and The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song all strained our vocal chords.
Setlist:
The Fear
Worm Mountain
Silver Trembling Hands
She Don’t Use Jelly
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine
In The Morning of the Magicians
I Can Be a Frog
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1
See the Leaves
Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung
The W.A.N.D.
Encore:
Do You Realize??
OK, I realise this has been a completely one-sided schoolgirl crush gushing about how amazing the Lips were, but I should mention that Austin band Spoon was also great (and I now really regret skipping their show with Deerhunter back in March). I was expecting dry, folk laden songs, and I was surprised how great their more electronic songs were. It’s just that after seeing Wayne Coyne and company, none of us could really remember their set. Tokyo Police Club are an even more distant memory, whom Coyne referred to as the “Tokyo Police Chaps”, also complimenting “whoever put this show together”. We missed Fang Island and the first 1/3 of the Tokyo Police Club set, but I’m not sure that it matters.
A solid 4.5 hours of top shelf rock ‘n roll was worth every cent of the $70 we paid. Officially the most expensive, and most satisfying show ever.
Guided by Voices is one of those bands that, much to my chagrin, most folks will only recognize because of Scrubs. That in itself isn’t a negative thing; the fact that Zach Braff chose to use the absolute worst GBV tune in existence (Hold on Hope), is.
Coming out of Dayton Ohio, Guided by Voices is the mastermind of Robert Pollard, a former elementary school teacher cum indie rock god whose fourth grade class apparently inspired much of the contents of Bee Thousand. He’s been around for decades, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I finally started dipping into his world record breaking songwriting well. Pollard is not-so-arguably the most prolific songwriter of all times, penning one or more songs a day for every day in his life. The hardest working man in music, GBV is one of those bands whose name I have always been familiar with, but whose artistic existence somehow managed to completely bypass me. That is rare, considering my obsession with all things college radio in my early high school days–though if I had to wait 16 years to find out about Bee Thousand, it was worth every second.
Bee Thousand is like that knight on a white horse of an album that just comes up out of nowhere and wallops you. I have consistently listened to it more than any other album within the past couple of years for good reason. As someone who has music O.C.D., dog-earing something with repeated non-stop listening once I get my hands on it, I appreciate the endurance of this collection of 20 odd 1-2 minute ditties that Pollard has churned out. “Genius of mammoth proportions” is not something I’d splash across just anything but, this album is just the best example of spawningly inspired songwriting that has ever been captured.
Let’s forget for a moment, that this is a lo-fi masterpiece. Wikipedia tells me that Pollard and his band were getting high when the epiphany of low production values equaling huge savings suddenly occurred to them. No one was buying their records anyway, so what did it matter if it was recorded on a shitty, hissing four track recorder? Funny how I never think of this as a lo-fi album. What I remember and consistently come back to has more to do with random, bizarre subject matter (legitimately strange, even for someone as jaded as myself) crafted into something surprisingly beautiful. Kind of like organic musical outsider art, if you will.
If you need any further evidence of the songs’ epic originality, you need only consult our friend Google. I challenge you to punch in any of these song titles and get anything other than an accurate hit.
Tracks:
Hardcord UFOs – A weird little two minute song about…I don’t even know what. Watching UFOs and waxing poetic about life and love or something. I stress the or something part.
Buzzards and Dreadful Crows – Surprisingly eloquent metaphor for …………………………? No amount of philosophical deliberation can make sense of this, and I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Tractor Rape Chain – Probably my third favorite track on the entire album. Something about it makes me want to get buckled into the passenger side of a car and belt it out at the top of my lungs, likely due to the fucked up but somehow adult-contempo-singable chorus, “Parallel lines on a slow decline – tractor rape chain / Better yet, let’s all get wet on the tractor rape chain / Speed up, slow down, go all around in the end”
The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory – The most cinematic / story-centric song in Bee Thousand about a broad who runs through the night like nobody cares. How this is crafted into one of the most beautifully simple love songs in my mind, remains a mystery. It must be the use of the use of a single tooting recorder at the end of the song. It reminds me of Grade 3 when the York Region District School Board’s idea of introducing music class involved having a bunch of 8 year olds play Hot Cross Buns really poorly.
Hot Freaks – There’s something awfully “Roadhouse” about this tune. It’s sexy as hell, slimy, reminiscent of guys in wifebeaters in dive bars. No wonder I like it so much. Never before have I heard so many bizarre-ass sexual metaphors piled up on each other. It starts off as “I met a non-dairy creamer / Explicitly laid out like a fruitcake / With a wet spot / Bigger than a great lake / Took me to the new church / And baptized me with salt / She told me, liquor / I am a new man”, petering out to “This one is on the house / This one is better than ever”
Smothered in Hugs – Another oddly beautiful tune that is a kind of “stand by your woman” runaway anthem. That’s all I’m piecing together from it, anyway.
Yours to Keep – Every time I listen to this album, it occurs to me that there wouldn’t be a more perfect thing to score a set of short stories to. This sweet little song demonstrates Bee Thousand’s ability to take you on a wildly oscillating unexpected ride.
*Note, I’m starting to run out of reviewing steam at this point, so I’m going to selectively write about the remaining 20 songs*
Gold Star for Robot Boy – Apparently a residual from Robert Pollard’s day as an elementary school teacher. If Robert Pollard was my fourth grade school teacher, you’d better believe I’d be purposely failing every year to remain in his class.
A Big Fan of the Pigpen – Glorious little singable (and happy) jaunt that just makes me want to go BA BA, BA DA BA BA DA DA DA all day long.
Kicker of Elves – Running less then a minute long, this is my top pick of the album. I often have this song running through my head as I walk the streets and fantasize about drop-kicking things and people. Little people, vases, what have you. There’s something very satisfying about this one even though it’s not even long enough to be scrobbled by last.fm.
I Am A Scientist– The most sophisticated / polished example off Bee Thousand running over a whopping two minutes long with a well developed beginning, middle, and end. This isn’t to say that the 30 second songs don’t; but it’s easy to see why the end result impressed Pollard’s new caliber of songwriting skills upon himself.
Peep-Hole – If it was socially acceptable, and if I ever got married, I would love to have this as my wedding song. Don’t ask me how we’d waltz to it. It’d probably go down as the most awkward wedding song ever with a series of weird spastic slow dance movements akin to Dawn Weiner in Welcome to the Dollhouse at her Junior Prom.
As many of you may know by now, Guided By Voices is reuniting under their classic Bee Thousand line-up for the Matador 21st Anniversary Celebration in Las Vegas. Robert Pollard never stopped touring (or drinking to get onstage) after GBV broke-up, and is really the DNA of GBV, but even he swore off live performance back in 2006. So if you have the chance, go see them live. My understanding is that he achieves the perfect level of drunkenness before getting onstage…a physical condition that requires a finesse that I both admire and aspire to maintaining.
I guarantee that hearing anything from this album live will blow your gaskets.
