Gig: The D'Urbervilles / Forest City Lovers

The D'Urbervilles / Forest City Lovers

The Theatre Centre (Summerworks Festival Music Series). Thursday, August 13, 2009

Celebrity encounter! Frank Chromewaves had sent out a call for audio from Joe Strummer's 1999 T.O. gig, something that I happened to have in my stash, so as Frank was walking by to head into the Theatre Centre, I accosted him and passed the material along and chatted a bit. A class act, natch.

The word on the street was that the night's set wasn't just going to be one band followed by the other, but more of a collaboration. More details were scant but theorized over. Such time-passing diversions were again required, as we were left sitting around outside in sultry heat well past the doors time, watching the building crowd for this show slowly block the ongoing panoramic entertainment of Queen Street. Once we were granted our ingress, the reason for this night's delay was apparent: the stage had been split in two and angled out into a V, with a drum kit on each. On the floor in front, two sets of gear were set up in near mirror-image. Grabbed a spot to sit at the base of the first riser as the crowd — by a good chunk the largest I'd seen so far at the Summerworks gigs — filled in.

Forest City Lovers didn't keep us waiting long once the crowd was in place. Taking their place on the stage right half of the setup, the crew launched into a short set of their delightful pop, animated by Kat Burns' shyly smiling vox. A good way to start the night, the crowd sitting down and adjusting to the underground gloopy warmness.

At the end of five songs came the switchover. Kyle Donnelly (a member of both bands and pulling double duty) started a bass riff while the rest of FCL started snapping their fingers like the Sharks challenging the Jets. Drummer Greg Santilly appeared behind his kit, pummeling out his beat, and suddenly the rest of the D'Urbs flung themselves out, stage left, and into "Spin the Bottle", as if picking up the West Side Story challenge and banishing the Sharks off their turf.

When I'd last seen The D'Urbs at CMW I was left with a sense of astonishment at how powerful a rock'n'roll machine the band had become, and on this night I'd say I felt that even moreso. The band played five songs — including two new ones — during their half of the set, and at the start, the switchover was so quick that the crowd stayed put sitting down. It only took a couple guys moving up once "The Receiver" started for the open space on the dancefloor to be filled up with sweaty, dancing people, and suddenly I was about two feet from vocalist John O'Reagan. The set ended with "This is the Life" and a new song — powerful stuff all around — and the band announced that they'd take a short break before reconvening, both bands combined, as "The Family Band".

Listen to a track from this set here.

I was interested as the full seven-piece joint band came out to see how the two sounds would combine, and wondered to myself whether FCL's more delicate edges might get overwhelmed by the D'Urbs' rollicking energy. As it shook out, the bands'd put enough thought into this to avoid that pitfall, and managed to put the extra hands into more texture rather than more volume. Which isn't to say that this wasn't muscular — we're talking about a seven-piece, two drummer combo here, after all — but it generally meant at least two people on keybs, plus Mika Posen's violin enriching the sound. Things really hit their stride and felt like a true collaboration in the middle of the set, when John added background vox to a lovely version "Watching The Streetlights Grow" that built up to a beautiful coda, followed by a funky party version of "Dragnet" that had John and Kat trading verses. The set had been announced as a birthday celebration special for Out of This Spark honcho Stuart Duncan and must've felt like a treat indeed. The bands, though dripping in sweat, were clearly having a ball and have to be congratulated for putting something like this together. I'd seen these two bands share a stage before¹, but seeing them working together like this was a whole other thing. One to be remembered. Although the crowd would have gladly stayed for more, the band returned to the stage only for a final bow before sending the crowd out to the cooler outside air.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ At their joint CD release party at the Tranzac, March '08.