2009 In Review: Best Concerts (Part II)

Part I of this retrospective can be found here. As with the first part, clicking on the headers will take you to my full review from the show.

The D'Urbervilles / Forest City Lovers

The Theatre Centre (Summerworks Festival Music Series). 2009-08-13 (Thursday)

An extra-long wait out on the sidewalk before getting into the stuffy basement space of The Theatre Centre did nothing to diminish the joy of this unique gig. A short set from Forest City Lovers melded seamlessly into The D'Urbs storming the stage, West Side Story style and playing a few songs before the bands took a break and emerged, seven players wide, in a combined joint force to play a collaborative set. "I 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. [...] The bands, though dripping in sweat, were clearly having a ball." The sort of thing that you go back and forth on after the fact — it'd be so cool to see that happen again, but as a unique singularity it's all the more precious.

Sometimes, stepping back to find that sweet spot in the venue's sound-field takes a back seat to just, like, being right there up front, so my recordings from the night aren't immaculate, but they get something of it across.

The Dutchess & The Duke

Bicycle Film Festival afterparty, Studio Gallery. 2009-08-22 (Saturday)

Another sweaty night, in a show at a ramshackle semi-venue, had an enjoyable undercard¹, but then I was taken by surprise by the headliners, a band I knew pretty much nothing about: "not long into the set, I realize I'm being completely fucking blown away. R&B in the sense that early Stones or Them or The Animals were R&B, the band had a batch of excellently-written songs, delivered here with off-the-cuff casualness blearily sagging into exhausted raggedness. It really felt like there was zero distance between performer and audience: shakers and tambourines were shared around, we sweated like they sweated, and the drummer's bottle of Johnny Walker Red got passed around so everyone could get a swig. By the end of the set, the walls were dripping with condensation and guitars were well nigh impossible to keep in tune. A singalong of 'I Am Just a Ghost' capped the set — one of the best shows of the year."

Check out recordings from The Dutchess and The Duke, as well as the night's other bands, here.

Wyrd Visions

Bite Your Tongue 1, The Guild 2009-09-06 (Saturday)

This entire show — sending the downtown-bound concert crowd through Scarborough to the beautiful bluffs at the Guild Inn — was a pretty special time, but this transporting set was the most affecting: "Playing on a double-necked guitar, with occasional accents from a looping pedal, his songs were droney folk rambles — folk in the olde Brittania sort of way. Imagine Jandek as a minstrel singing songs of the boggy dew, and you're kinda on the right track. The fact that his set, just over a half-hour, consisted of four songs indicates that his tunes are designed to unspool themselves in their own dreamtime. All of these elements could go so wrong, and could veer to the unlistenable or the precious. But in these circumstances — the near-dark and the first stars winking on in the sky; the fecund descending dampness; crickets chirping in the background — it was perfect, almost sublime."²

If I dare say so myself, I think my recording from Wyrd Visions' set is rather good. My other recordings from the evening are pretty nice, too.

Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests

SPK Polish Combatants Hall 2009-09-12 (Saturday)

An Ethiopian New Year's special, with a mish-mash crowd merging folks from the Ethiopian community with grizzled old leather-jacket punks and younger Wavelength types, all drinking strong Polish beer and getting funky to a Dutch punk band backing a musical legend. "Most of all, throughout, it was sax heaven. Mekuria, now in his seventies, plays with a rich, groovy tone filled with vital emotion. There is undoubtedly tonnes to be said about the technical side of his craft, his technique, and how he bridges Ethiopian and European styles, but while playing with such vitality it's hard not just to slip into the richness of it. There were no few times where I just wanted the song to keep going, which isn't always (usually?) the way I feel in the midst of a ninety minute set."

I got a decent, not great, recording of that set, but it's still plenty groovy.

The Vic Chesnutt Band

Lee's Palace. 2009-11-07 (Saturday)

Damn damn damn. This show should have been memorable for different reasons. For pairing a gifted and unique songwriter with a powerful band, including members of the Silver Mt. Zion & Tra-La-La Band and guitar hero Guy Picciotto, adding depth and widescreen sweep to his songs for an intense ninety minutes. Or for the laconic, deadpan wit that Vic Chesnutt exhibited on stage. But now, all I mostly think about is "Flirted With You All My Life", when he sang, "O Death, clearly I'm not ready yet." And then, not so many weeks later, changed his mind about that.

R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt, 1964-2009. His music will be remembered; my recording is here.

The Hidden Cameras

The Opera House. 2009-12-05 (Saturday)

In my older, crankier years, I'm becoming increasingly resistant to large-venue shows, so that this show at the not-well-loved Opera House was one of my favourites speaks to the band's talent for scaling their spectacle to the size of the room and showing all challengers how to attain collective glee. Let's see: choir, dancers, banners, audience participation, the band in the crowd and the crowd on the stage. Add to that a delicious opening set from Gentleman Reg³, who'd be one of the many extras on hand for the main act, and this was an excellent night out, that made me feel, upon leaving the venue, optimistic somehow.

This was a treat for more than just the ears, but you can check out a track here.

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¹ Including fine sets from The Bitters and now-already-defunct local shoegazers Heaven, as well as Austin spazz-punks Mutating Meltdown, the band that I was actually sorta there to see.

² An honourable mention should be made here to this concert's sequel, Bite Your Tongue 2, held in November at circus training school Centre of Gravity, which was also an excellent time. Especially memorable was Corpusse's maximally-committed electro-metal. Note to the folks at Bite Yr Tongue: more, please.

³ Gentleman Reg's live work as a whole throughout the year merits him a special citation on this list as well — I can't pick one set, but his many local shows throughout the year, with his band building up steam from month to month, were a definite highlight.