Do Make Say Think (The Happiness Project)
E----- Theatre, Harbourfront Centre. Saturday, December 12, 2009.
Knew I was heading down to Harbourfront for this one, but I actually had to look up to double check where I was headed. The E----- Theatre — and beg my pardon I if don't give free publicity to the utility company that has "naming rights" to the place — is the one attached to the Power Plant Gallery, a facility I'd walked past hundreds of times, but had never been in to. It turned out to be a rather nice room — a boxy rectangle inside, with a large stage facing rising rows of seats and a balcony. Compact enough to feel intimate without being shoehorned in. Rows of seats along the long sides would have meant a bit of an awkward angle to watch the show seeing as they faced straight across the long side of the room but I lucked out, ending up sitting right in the middle of the front row of the balcony. I'd casually grabbed a ticket at Soundscapes, not even realizing until just before the event that the venue was assigned seating. And the sort of assigned seating, it looked like, that would be enforced by very vigilant, very un-rock'n'roll ushers, enforcing the sorts of rules most typical of a play or serious recital than a rock show — no drinks in the hall, no photos. But if nothing else, it meant that the show started right on the tick at nine o'clock, so I do appreciate that.
Opening things up on the first night of three at the theatre was Charles Spearin's "science experiment", The Happiness Project, wherein he explores the musicality of the human voice by creating melodies from interviews with his neighbours. As an album, I found the concept compelling — and even moving — but I can't say I found it something I wanted to relisten to a lot. Revisiting it live brought a similar reaction, although in the live setting it was also possible to see the technical skill of the musicians being brought to bear in nimbly doubling the voices in the interviews. "It's the same band," Spearin wryly commented before beginning, and indeed, the vocalizations were brought to life by Karen Ng's saxophone ("Mrs. Morris") and Julie Penner's violin ("Ondine"). And, just as the first time I listened to the album, I found it easy to get swept up in the emotionality of the music, such as "Vanessa", recipient of a cochlear implant, discussing the first experience of hearing after a lifetime of deafness — "all of a sudden I felt my body moving inside" taking on a sweet resonance, the group singing it in harmony after the swelling music dropped out. Catchiest of the lot was the exuberance of "Vittoria", swinging like a kid making a beeline for the monkey bars as soon as recess starts. So on the whole, a worthy effort.
And then, a proper intermission between sets, the house sound system, somewhat incongruously, playing a selection of Motown hits. Time to stretch a bit and wander around the upper reaches of the theatre — the long north-facing wall giving a nice view of the city stretched out behind the Queen's Quay condos. Heading back in, I saw a well-dressed middle-aged woman being politely but firmly busted by one of those ushers for trying to smuggle her glass of wine back to her seat. Well, those are the trouble-making types you have to watch out for, I guess.
Celebrating their fifteenth anniversary as a band, local indie titans Do Make Say Think took the stage with an obligatory "it's fucking good to be home!", starting with "Make" off the just-released Other Truths. This is a rare track with vox, although even still, they're more of the chant-for-texture variety. Following the prototypical Constellation-y template, there was a big build, imploding — ten minutes later — into a quiet horn fanfare at the end.
"Let's get romantic here Toronto," most banter-prone member Justin Small commented to the crowd, asking for the lights to be further dimmed. "This is a long-time love affair. This isn't a one-night stand... this is a three night stand." All the better to see the well-executed visuals projected onto the giant screen behind the band. Mostly of the reclaimed stock footage variety, manipulated in real time following the changes in sonic texture. Different elements would re-appear throughout the show, being juxtaposed against each other in sly ways.
About forty-five minutes in, the band came up for air. "Anybody need to take a piss? We'll wait — we're cool." Small commented. "We're tuning right now, if you gotta do it, now's your chance. 'Cuz we're about to play our second song." Then into the pretty, waltz-ish intro to "Reitschule", like many DMST tunes stuffed with exceedingly beautiful moments — tension/release, potency/languidness — several times I was rather glad I was sitting in a relatively comfortable seat, and just leaned back and closed my eyes and let it all sink in — when not in thunderstorm mode, DMST craft sounds exceedingly well-suited to zoning out.1 Of course, such moments of reverie would be pierced by the crescendos of ascending complexity and volume. The seventy-five minute main set ended with "The Universe!" (worthy of its exclamation mark) before the band came back for the encore.
"Do you like sitting down for a Do Make Say Think show?" ["Nooo!" from the crowd] "Then stand up! We thought we were providing an experience — turns out you fuckers wanna dance!" And as they launched into "Do", most of the crowd stood up, the most intrepid moving up to stand at the foot of the stage. "Do" merged into the anthemic "Auberge Le Mouton Noir", which the band pulled off even with violinist Julie Penner's amp konking out. A fully satisfying showing from the home side — excellently performed in a superb-sounding room.
1 Writing this, in fact, may be the hardest things I've ever done, as, while listening back to the show, I keep getting caught up in the music, and I keep finding myself staring out the window instead, light snow gently drifting down against a late-afternoon grey sky, the solstice darkness about to descend with a quick thump, cars whooshing by below past the occasional pedestrian. ... [five minutes later] Oh, sorry, was I saying something?
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Enron Theatre? I thought those guys went broke.
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