Forest City Lovers (Hooded Fang / Golden Ghost / Allie Hughes)
The Horseshoe. Friday, November 5, 2010.
It was nice to see the Horseshoe's stage brightened up with some banners strung across the stage and a giant donut (or, more likely, some sort of pool flotation device) hanging from the rear wall. And if that weren't enough, further illumination would come from Allie Hughes, starting things off with a Broadway-style overture/instrumental medley of snippets of the set's songs. The elements of what would become her "wedding shows" — Hughes' wedding veil, the thematic arc of the songs — looked to be falling into place here, just not quite amped up or explicitly calling attention to themselves.
Her distinguished band included Randy Lee (violin), Bram Gielen (keyb) and Thomas Gill (guit) as well as a pair of mannequin heads on her keyboard. Cue the dramatics. As she asked her man why he'd wanna break her heart, Hughes dropped to her knees, pounding the floor — but at the same time, breaking character and laughing at the over-the-topness of it all.
The band was joined by Rouge's Jess Tollefson and Kelly McMichael on "O Chad", but the numbers slimmed down to just a pair on "Headmaster", considerably stripped down from the last time I'd heard it — here with just Hughes' keys and some violin from Lee, everyone else exiting the stage for a much more contained version of the song. That exploded into a screaming, swirling vortex of sound1 that segued into "Damaged Nail". In this context, the jarring shiftiness of the song works better than in its recorded incarnation, where the mildly schizo bounding feels unearned. From an insane cabaret spurned bride, it makes more sense.
Shifting tone once again, the brisk twenty-five minute set closed with "Not the Stars", the "pop hit" once again amped up over the top with goofy gusto. I remain fascinated with the fact that there's so much in Hughes' sets that shouldn't work on me, and yet I'm fully entertained every time.
Listen to a track from this set here.
On a busy bill with three local acts I knew well, the unknown quantity on the night was Golden Ghost, a duo out of Endicott, New York with Laura Goetz on guit and most vox backed by Brendon Massei's drums. The music was unassuming folksy rock driven by Goetz's gently-picked guitar and ambling lyrics. The pair give off a charming vibe — looking like they fell out of the pages of an Adrian Tomine sketchbook, Massei actually said "gosh" while whipping up enthusiasm for Forest City Lovers ("Who's getting excited for Forest City Lovers tonight, besides ourselves? Gosh... it's gonna be good.") It all made me want to like them, but the songs didn't cast much of a spell on me.
It probably didn't help that their quieter, less direct sort of music was sort of just being played toward a semi-indifferent void — without a crowd of friends to cheer along, there weren't too many people attentively checking it out. April Aliermo from Hooded Fang was right up front and centre, though, getting into it.
When they picked up the pace, it got more engaging, but I found the slower stuff to drag along — and the longer that went, the more it was up against the chatter from the crowd. Mixed results, overall. Credit Goetz for having faith in her meandering sensibility, but there wasn't a lot here that engaged me.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Leaving the crowd with something catchy stuck in their heads wouldn't be a problem for Hooded Fang. With their album on the cusp of being released, the band had plenty of shows lined up to get the word out. But even with that release a few weeks away, there were plenty of patrons on hand who knew most of the new material well, such as the one-two punch of "Laughing" and "Sleep Song". Except for an appearance from the earlier EP's "Land of Giants", the Album material would fill out the set.
The band seemed eager to get as much music in their timeslot as possible, zipping through songs without stopping to chat much. Which isn't to say they were rushing through the set list — "Green River" stretched out a bit, and soon the dancefloor pretty full with people moving along, especially during "Highway Steam". Finishing with the poptimistic bounce of "Love Song", there were some calls for one more from the crowd, but the band cleared off to make room for the night's headliner.
Listen to a track from this set here.
As Forest City Lovers eased into "Phodilus & Tyto", it took the chatty crowd a few minutes to settle down. As it would turn out, FCL had an eager audience, but more in a "we want to party with you" sense than in being conservatory quiet.
The band featured a slightly shuffled roster as compared to their album release show, with Randy Lee sitting in on violin for the absent Mika Posen plus Kelly McMichael on keybs. There were plenty of friends in the crowd as well — besides several members of Ohbijou dancing in the front row there was also a handful of older friends from younger days in the crowd, shouting out school slogans between songs. "Durham region represent," commented Kat Burns, acknowledging them between songs.
The set was front-loaded with material from new album Carriage, with a half-dozen tracks showcasing its ample virtues before the band reached back for "Pirates". "Pocketful of Rocks" and "Minneapolis" shined here. Then the band reached all the way back to the first Forest City Lovers album (2006's Haunting Moon Sinking) for "Castles", which was dedicated to Ohbijou's Casey Mecija, who was celebrating a birthday.
That opened the door for more old favourites which dominated the rest of the set, including "Don't Go", "Song For Morrie" and "Country Road" as the big finale, the band stripping back for these to the core four-piece, with Kyle Donnelly, Christian Ingelevics and Timothy Bruton behind Burns.
Perhaps all those suburban highschool friends in the audience were the trigger in the encore for a big singalong run through Green Day's "Longview", a chance for drummer Ingelevics to hammer enthusiastically. Burns struggled to remember most of the words, laughing all the way through before closing things out with the quieter "Orphans" and a chance for a last few singalong woah-ohs.2
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 "I think it's supposed to symbolize her descent into madness," as Lisa said.
2 Kat Burns will be playing a solo set to open up for Basia Bulat at The Great Hall on Saturday, March 26 and the whole band will be playing The Garrison on Friday April 1.
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