Concert Review: Diamond Rings, La Roux, October 23, The Guvernment

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Ricky in Concerts, Everything | 1 Comment

Toronto – Lets get straight to the reviews. Friday night concerts at the Guvernment are always early shows. Why? cos the clubbers get in from the 905 at around 10 pm and that’s where the money is. So Friday night’s La Roux show was an early one, with La Roux taking the stage at 9 and Toronto’s own Diamond Rings taking the stage at 8. How do I feel about early shows? On weekdays, I love it. On weekends, I don’t know..at least you can do something after.

Opening act was Diamond Rings. You might of heard of him before as he had a fairly popular video this summer for his song “All Yr Songs”, you can check it out here. The main force behind Diamond Rings is John O, also the lead singer of the Toronto band D’Urbervilles. The music between the two acts are significantly different. I was fairly impressed with the one man act, John O sounds like a more emotive Paul Banks, and his 80s inspired pop music sound was good. The hooks were insanely catchy and all the music just went well together. The half hour set consisted of songs off an upcoming EP (I guess) and also featured guest appearances by Katie Stelmanis and Gentleman Reg. For an opening act, it was really good.

La Roux came on at about 9:10. This raised some alarms, because well, we all knew she had to be outta there by 11. Equipped with a drummer (playing some sort of electronic drum kit), keyboard/laptop dj person, and a backing female vocalist, La Roux quickly launched into some song (forgot what it was). Boy, the hair. It’s quite the coif. It was probably 20 centimeters high and I am wondering how much hair product is required to keep that thing up during the show. Then I’m reminded of that scene from Something About Mary. Haha.

Anyways, the concert was ridiculously short, maybe 35 minutes. Perhaps this was because Elly Jackson was sick (she had cancelled a few shows prior to this show due to illness). Perhaps it was cos of the guvernment. I don’t know. For the time she was on stage, Elly Jackson gave it her all, dancing and doing proper call and responses with the crowd. The setlist was what you would expect, which is a lot of songs off the self titled debut album. She didn’t play Armoured Love, which is a song I like a lot. Set closer Bulletproof got the highest response and the crowd (not sold out) was quite enthused about the show, but ultimately, the shortness of it probably left a stale taste in most people’s mouth. I also thought there might have been too much pre-recorded sound. Maybe it was because of the illness. Either way, to go all the way to the guvernment and only get a 35 minute show (even if it was pretty good) can only come off as mildly disappointing.

Concert Review: Lucero, Oct. 20, Lee’s Palace

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Paul in Concerts, Everything | 1 Comment

Toronto – Lucero are one of those bands who’ve been around awhile and  have a dedicated following, but who a lot of people just haven’t heard of. The Memphis based band have been around since 1998 and play what could be variously described as country punk, punk country, alt country or just rock n’ roll. Their myspace page describes them as rock/indie/southern rock, so we’ll go with that. They’re touring behind their new album 1372 Overton Park, their first for a major label.

The band started off with Sound Of The City, which features an opening riff slightly reminiscent of Pulp’s Disco 2000, but more … southern maybe.  I dunno.  The crowd was full of hardcore fans (speaking of hardcore, I spotted no less than 3 dudes in the crowd with full scalp tattoos – now that’s hardcore … but I digress) so even if you only knew them a bit, it was easy to get swept up in the enthusiasm. This enthusiasm continued unabated throughout the night. Well, almost unabated. At one point, the awesomely monikered bassist John C. Stubblefield (who looks like a slightly shaggier Patterson Hood) addressed the crowd to let them know to be careful while “mixin’ it up” up front as a girl almost lost her teeth to a beer bottle. Singer Ben Nichols added, “We’ve got enough toothless girls back home, we don’t need any more.” Funny.

Lucero’s sound has evolved over the years and this was reflected in the band’s lineup this night. There were up to eight players on stage at any given time, including pedal steel, keyboards, and 2 saxophone players. That’s right, 2 saxes! I’m calling it now – the sax is making a comeback. Well … maybe not, but at the very least, Clarence Clemons’ job is safe.

All in all, it was a good show. The band played for over 2 hours and highlights included The War (in my mind, maybe their best song), That Much Further West, Kiss The Bottle, Darken My Door, and the dude who got up on stage near the end to play a tambourine solo. It was pretty good and he looked like he was enjoying himself.

 

Concert Review: Sloan, October 19, Dakota Tavern

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Ricky in Concerts | 3 Comments

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Toronto – I have never seen Sloan before.

There..I’ve said it.

When I told this to a few of my friends, they were flabbergasted, and then slowly they all recalled when they first saw them, and it was always sometime in the mid 90s and always in some small bar somewhere.

Well, I grew up in Alberta, so it wasn’t like Sloan plays there on a regular basis like they did the East Coast or Toronto. I got to see Wide Mouth Mason a lot though…yay.

So when I saw that War Child and Sloan were collaborating to put on a charity show at the Dakota Tavern on October 19, I thought why not? The Dakota Tavern is a small space, it would be cool to see an established band like Sloan there and I usually feel guilty after seeing those Trebek/McLachlan War Child commercials on tv anyway. So I can basically score good karma points AND see Sloan for the first time in one shot. It was a no brainer. After I bought tickets I was thinking man, it’d be cool to see them play a greatest hits show at the Dakota (basically the only songs of theirs I knew).

Shortly thereafter, my friend D informed me that it was going to be a rarities show (along with some new material). I, of course, was like..shat. I don’t really know much Sloan and surely, I would not know any of their ‘rarities’. I would say lately, the word “Sloan” has been more associated with the hot YTV chick from Entourage then the band. Here is a pic of her. No way E bags this girl if he wasn’t associated with Vinnie Chase, I say.

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So the show started around 9..I think there was maybe 50-60 people there. A good size crowd, Ed Robertson from the Barenaked Ladies was there and I think he did socks and sandals. Now here is where the wheels come off this review. I can maybe name 5 Sloan songs..maybe 10 if you really push me, so I can’t say what song they played in which order. Luckily, my friend D is a human encyclopedia of Springsteen, Rolling Stone and Sloan songs, so he was able to provide a set list of sorts..here it is:

Twice Removed: I Can Feel It
One Chord To Another: Autobiography; A Side Wins; Can’t Face Up; Everything You’ve Done Wrong
Navy Blues: Keep On Thinkin’; Stand By Me, Yeah
Between The Bridges: The N.S.; Don’t Believe A Word; Friendship; The Marquee And The Moon; A Long Time Coming; Waiting For Slow Songs
Pretty Together: The Great Wall; Who You Talkin’ To?
Action Pact: The Rest Of My Life
Never Hear The End Of It: Someone I Can Be True With; Who Taught You To Live Like That?
Parallel Play: Living The Dream
NEW ep: Take It Upon Yourself; New Andrew Song
B-Side: At The Edge Of The Scene

The set was about 90-100 minutes and as a casual observer, I thought it was charming. I guess a lot of these songs have not been played in concert in a long time, so at times Patrick would forget the lyrics, but the crowd was more then willing to help along. There was multiple singalongs through out the night and man, the vibe was just good. The guys from the band seem pretty down to Earth and talked to the crowd as if they were all friends (I suspect a good bunch were friends). This was a pretty exchange

“This next song is off Pretty Together, nobody’s favorite album. Kinda like Born on a Pirate Ship”

Haha, thats pretty funny.

It would seem that to me that if you are a band who has toured extensively the last 15-20 years, it must feel good to be able to play a show in your neighborhood, at a place you probably frequent on a regular basis and be able to play songs you would never play at say, the Kool Haus, and get a positive response. This was what made the show good. It was a low key affair and everyone seemed to have a good time.

I guess I can cross Sloan off my list of Canadian bands that I should probably see. Broken Social Scene..you are next.

Ps. You can download the new Sloan single for free off their website here.

Concert Review: Silversun Pickups, Sound Academy, October 14

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Paul in Concerts | Leave a comment

Toronto – Things overheard on the bus ride and walk to the venue:

“So where is the Docks anyways?” “Just follow the crowd.” “But no one in the crowd knows where we’re going”

As “the crowd” passed by a Cirque du Soleil tent:

“Cirque du Soleil’s playing? I’d much rather see them than Silversun Pickups.”

Ouch.

So by the time I finally make it to the Sound Academy, openers An Horse were already playing. They had a good sound – upbeat, poppy stuff. I think they’ll be opening for Tegan and Sara, which makes sense as they have a similar sensibility. There’s maybe also a hint of Matt and Kim in their sound, but that might just be a case of me making a lazy comparison to another two piece band.

Up next was Cage The Elephant, who reminded the crowd several times that they were from Kentucky. Hometown pride, I guess. I knew nothing about them before this show, but I did recognize their song ,”Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,” not because I had heard them do it before, but because some kid on the bus was singing it to get himself all stoked for the show. They were alright, had a bit of a garage rock influence at times.

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Silversun Pickups impressed me. The Los Angeles band was here touring in promotion of their album Swoon, which was released in April to generally favorable reviews. They’re a pretty tight live band and yeah, they do certainly sound like Smashing Pumpkins. Lead singer Brian Aubert’s got a high voice too. I’m not judging, just sayin’. High voice. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to Daniel Faraday from Lost. This resemblance started distracting me a bit as I was expecting him to say things like “Whatever happened, happened” or “You can’t change the future.” Sadly, he did not say anything like this. He did, however, mention that Toronto always makes them “feel really, really good” or something to that effect. So we’ve got that going for us.

Take that, Cirque du Soleil!

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