Sheezer (Sister)
The Garrison. Friday, October 29, 2010.
With Hallowe'en falling on the Sunday, those who planned all week, those who planned all month, those who planned all year had a whole weekend to be in costume. So unsurprisingly on what could be foreseen as a goofy fun-fun sort of night, there were no few people dressed up. Openers Sister got in on the act, the trio all wearing costume ball-style bird masks.
"I think already have feathers in my mouth," announced Carla Gillis after the first song. Gillis, known to local music fans as a writer at Now magazine was joined by her sister Lynette. The pair have played together in bands for a good stretch, all the way back to Halifax Explosion-era band Plumtree.1 Joined here by Pete Johnston on bass, this was pretty appealing from the get go — power-pop with no lack of crunch but leavened with sweetness. At a theoretical level, this is the sort of thing I dig (and certainly used to dig a lot).
The set started with "Wishbone", a super-catchy tune that might be a cousin to Veruca Salt's "Forsythia", though it leans a bit too heavily on minimal lyrical repetition ("Crack it half / wait / gotta make a wish first"). Though it's easy to pigeonhole the band into that narrow terrain, the songs owe something more to a classic rock sensibility, generally allowing themselves to stretch out. These are more like four-five minute songs than two-three minute bashers — there's a confident, arranged sense of maturity at play. On "Orion", probably the most striking of the band's compositions, the trio was joined by Geoff Miller (bandmate to the Gillises in their synth-heavy post-Plumtree project Bontempi) on keyboards.
With only a five-song EP to their credit, it's not surprising that there was some other material than that filling out the set. Carla moved from guitar to keyb for one of the unreleased ones with Lynette sharing the lead vox. That one felt a little spare, but better was "Feather on the Ocean Floor", which won with a combination of bouncy bass and cold-shoulder keyb tones. The set ended with Carla back on the guitar for "Showed Up on the Beach", as she announced, "in honour of the Weezer songs, this is totally going to rock." Seven songs all told, and it was pretty tasty stuff. The band don't look to be playing a whole lot right now, but do check 'em out if you get a chance.
Listen to a song from this set here.
Between sets, the crowd was getting thicker. It was interesting to note a sort of divide in the crowd, between people who remember when the first couple Weezer albums came out and the younger crowd for whom this was something more like "classic rock" than "90's nostalgia". Unsurprisingly, that younger cohort were louder and more inclined to dress up — including a crew of women dressed as angels that ended up in front of me. Young and drunk, they didn't quite have their fingers on the notion that giant wings on one's back is an impractical accessory in a crowded bar, and during the headliner's set one of them kept lurching backwards into the woman standing next to me. For a moment, I thought the angel was going to get socked in the jaw, based on the glares that were being issued. "It's like they've never been in a bar before," commented K., shaking her head at them after getting bumped into a couple times herself. But, when Sheezer plays, you're going to get people who are drunk and or/celebrating.
In a nod to both Hallowe'en and their own teamwork, the band emerged in full Sailor Moon regalia.2 They started the set with a Blue Album one-two of "My Name Is Jonas" and "No One Else" and kept going song-for-song from there — and it might indicate the level of my Weezer fandom that I only figured that out after the fact. The sound was a little muddled to start, but after a pause to tweak a few details, it came together.
Once the sound was tied down, the set really took off, with little flourishes that gave the music some zing — like Alysha Haugen and Laura Barrett tossing in a coordinated twirl move on "The World Has Turned And Left Me Here". Magali Meagher sang the lead on that one, but over the course of the set, all of the members except Haugen would get a turn on lead vocals.
I enjoyed how the band isn't reluctant to juice things up by rushing the tempos a little — driving the song from behind the drum kit and providing vocals, Dana Snell gave "Buddy Holly" an amusingly zooming ride. Compared to the last time I saw 'em, the band was handling the material more smoothly, but without losing that appealing rough edge.
"Undone - The Sweater Song" involved inviting an audience member dressed as Hurley3 up on stage to act as an as interlocutor with Tuxedo Mask during one of the song's spoken segments. Hurley wanted to sing the lyrics, natch, just as pretty much everyone on hand was doing to some extent. That made it hard for even the likes of me not to crack a smile.
The band had also added "In the Garage" to their repertoire since the last time 'round, with some harmonica from Robin Hatch. The band made one slight alteration to end the set, subbing in "The Good Life" to give the main set a rousing conclusion.
They returned for a three-song encore, now dipping into Pinkerton for the popular sing-along "El Scorcho", which seemed to make people in the crowd very happy, and the band just as much — they were grinning at each other and laughing as they played. Then they went back to finish off the Blue Album with the extended, heartfelt "Only In Dreams". Barrett shouted a Sailor Moon-ish "arigato!" as they left the stage.
It arguably says something about how much I respect the members of this band that I've broken my "no cover bands" rule to see them not once, but twice. Especially for a bunch of songs by a band that I'm neither here nor there about. Which isn't to say that this was some sort of grim experience for me — drunk, bumping angels notwithstanding it was a fun time, but my un-devotedness probably made me a bit more of a scoreboard-watcher than usual, so to speak, keeping an eye out on the division of labour and who took the vox on which song etc. We should all take our fun as we can find it, I guess.
1 Plumtree have had a bit of a post-career boost lately with last year's ubiquitous Scott Pilgrim film adaptation, the books having taken their name from one of their songs. For those catching up with Plumtree, there a new best-of album available, which is well-worth snapping up.
2 I think Laura Barrett was the titular leader of the pack, but's probably for the best that I can't remember which member of the Sailor Moon crew is which. Though perhaps that implies that I used to be able to, which is perhaps something I oughtn't to brag about.
3 Inviting him up was pushing the limits of the band's self-imposed first-two-albums-only Weezer enthusiasm, no?
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My wearing wings in a bar observation was not just directed to those 2 girls - it applies to everyone who thinks that wearing wings in a packed bar is a good idea. You don't look cute. You look like an oblivious jerk.
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