The Rural Alberta Advantage / Hooded Fang / The Wilderness of Manitoba
The Horseshoe. Thursday, July 30, 2009.
Even though this was a sold out show, I was mildly surprised at how many people were out early. Although I'm sometimes one to carp about "these kids today", this was fairly decent young crowd, and fairly genteel — save for a small knot of screaming, arm-waving idiots. Perhaps this music (the commonalities of all three bands could be categorized under "The New Sincerity") just appeals to slightly more earnest people. Which might explain the robust turnout for early openers The Wilderness of Manitoba.1 The most earnestly sincere of the evening's bands, this crew draws from the same folkie harmony-worshiping, cite-CSN-as-an-influence waters as your Fleet Foxes and your Bon Ivers.2 The band's sound featured cello, banjo, ukulele and occasional keening, high falsetto. Launching with images of bluebirds singing and autumn leaves, the songs were dominated by earthy imagery and woody sounds. "We're not a very heavy band," averred singer Will Whitwham near set's end — undoubtedly true, and very much the band's blessing and curse. Even with a relatively attentive crowd, their music was eaten up a bit in this space. In a smaller, quieter venue, or out under some trees, this would fit in a little nicer. Although this isn't a style of music that totally accords with my headspace, I was drawn in some by what they're doing — especially when the harmonies hit. Not every song got over, but this band has tapped into a musical vein that could carry them along some. A nice table-setter for the night.
An open apology to Hooded Fang: So, between sets, I was exiting the bathroom, just as HF vocalist Daniel Lee was stepping in. Passing him, I nodded and said, "good luck". And then winced to myself as I headed back upstairs, as I remembered that whole reverse hoodoo thing where you're never supposed to say that to showbiz people. You're supposed to say, "break a leg!" or something like that. So I spent the rest of the between-set time mildly fretting that I'd cursed them.3 I'm sure, though, that Hooded Fang are getting seasoned enough by this point that such small misfortunes cannot overcome them. For this set the sound was a little weird — hopefully not my fault! — with the keybs way down in the mix, leaving the sound a little... empty somehow. This did have the benefit of featuring the rhythm section a bit more than usual, and upping the danceability, which is usually a good strategy for an opening act to employ. So, even if this wasn't the best sounding set I've heard by the band, it was still reasonably fun. Hooded Fang are building up a nice arsenal of tunes, like the peppy "Younger Days", beyond the first salvo that were featured on their EP. Hopefully they won't keep us waiting too long for that album.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Well, things certainly have changed since I last saw The Rural Alberta Advantage this spring. Buoyed by that ineffable buzz, it felt like the RAA were on another level, even if I were only standing a couple feet further away. In this allegedly post-CD age, their album's re-issuing on Saddle Creek is still enough of a big deal to warrant a "CD release party" more than a year after it originally came out. By this point of the night, the 'Shoe was crammed full and getting meltingly hot. From the moment the band took the stage, if was a total love-in — every song was a singalong. Admittedly, this left me with the sense that I was attending other people's church as though I like this band, there are obviously a lot of people who have found this stuff to be in that special category of songs that have become close to them.4
Leading off with "The Ballad of the RAA" and "Rush Apart", it seemed for a moment that the band might've been following through on sorta-kiddding threats to play the album track-for-track, but things were a bit more mixed up from there. It's trite, I'm sure, to bring out phrases like "road hardened", but there was something different in the band's deportment from the previous times I'd seen them. Call it professionalism or just a paucity of goofing off, but Paul Banwatt and Amy Cole now seem to roam the stage less while Nils is playing. And the sound is similarly no-nonsense, beefed up and with any unnecessary frippery stripped away. And while I wasn't amongst the part of the crowd having a transcendent experience, there was plenty in this show to love. I was struck by the quieter moments of "The Air", as well as Banwatt's Ringo-channeling drums on "Sleep All Day". There was also a new song ("The North Star / guiding us home in your friend's car") that looked forward to the future after Hometowns. Perhaps it's best in these loud'n'sweaty circumstances that the band didn't close with their unamplified "Good Night Song", although it was missed.
It's hard to guess what could be next for The RAA. I left thinking "they've made it all the way to the top", as by the standards of bands I tend to follow, they've climbed up a pretty long way. Of course, going home I got on a subway packed with people coming back from seeing Coldplay — apparently they're still around — and remembered that there's that whole other giant terrain of mershy success. I dunno how far this wave they're on will carry the Rural Alberta Advantage, but with luck maybe they'll take their place in yet more listeners' hearts. People could do a lot worse.
Listen to a song from this set here.
Special thanks are due to T., who helped me replace the battery in my recorder, allowing me to get back to fearlessly taping full sets instead of being limited to ever-diminishing bursts.
1 Admittedly, from the outset, I took a bit of a disliking to that moniker. My first thought was along the lines of, "um, aren't they stealing RAA's steez with a name like that?" And then there was a sense of generalized discomfiture brought on by the fact that I spent my childhood in the wilderness of Manitoba, meaning I'm allowed to have ambiguous/negative feelings towards it — call that the "Weakerthans effect", perhaps.
2 If I recall correctly, the Mayan calendar predicted that CSN would become a publicly acceptable influence again in 2008 — a sign of worse things to come in 2012.
3 To the good, though, I managed to then distract myself for a few minutes trying to remember why actors aren't supposed to refer to Macbeth by name.
4 It actually arouses a kind of nostalgia in me to get the sense that people have spent a lot of time with the album, know all the words, etc. etc. etc., as this sort of thing happens a lot less to me than it used to. Just part of growing older, I guess, and finding there are less new things to take you by surprise. As to how much falling in love with fewer pop albums is a sign of a wider thing — a fading ability to look at the world with wonderment instead of a vague disenchantment — is a topic that sprawls beyond the purview of this blog. You can observe me, if you must, thinking this one over while wandering the streets or standing at streetcar stops, flicking at the curb with the point of my shoes as I search for cigarette butts worth retrieving to disassemble and combine into new roll-your-owns.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment