Gig: The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats (Megafaun)

The Opera House. Sunday, April 3, 2011.

I've never been a big fan of The Opera House, and this trip down to Queen Street East did nothing to change that opinion. Getting into the venue is something like passing through customs to North Korea, a series of lineups and random, redundant security checks — I was asked if I had any "cigarettes" more than once. That was more than enough to drain away my enthusiasm, especially as the slowness of it all meant that I missed the bulk of the set by openers Megafaun.

I probably wasn't in the best frame of mind by this point, so the fact that what I did hear didn't do anything for me is probably inconclusive at best. What came off as hey y'all twang-ish pleasantness might have had something more substantial behind it.

As I moved up between sets, I was faced with another one of the venue's least-pleasant features — in a full house, the lower floor near the stage gets uncomfortably packed. At least, looking around, it appeared that this was a bit of an older, fannish, non-rowdy kind of crowd. That's about be what one'd expect for The Mountain Goats, a band that has a lot of highly-passionate fans who feel a strong connection to bandleader John Darnielle, whose lyrics transcend most singer/songwriter pitfalls by remaining grounded to the mundane while cutting deeply and incisively into the dark reams of pain and soul-damage.

In this crowd with plenty hardcore enthusiasts¹, I was actually here as something of a curiosity-seeker. For a band that does inspire such strong devotion, I'm actually a rather casual Mountain Goats fan, getting into them only around the time of 2008's Heretic Pride. As such, this was my first chance to see them, as they hadn't passed through town since '07 — in the band's duo days before drummer John Wurster was in the fold. They're now a relatively-expansive four-piece, with longtime bassist Peter Hughes complemented by touring keyboard player Yuval Semo.

Given the preciseness and detail that Darnielle musters, it was a disappointment that the set began with a pre-recorded skit/entry music that led off with a cheery, "hi, America!", which is never endearing to a Canadian crowd. I was feeling too rankled by that to grasp the thrust of the heavy metal overture, though I believe it was something by Morbid Angel, whose Erik Rutan produced some of the tracks on the new All Eternals Deck.

But, as the band took their places, I put all that behind me, seeing as Darnielle's music is about overcoming adversity (or, less optimistically, being crushed by it). Darnielle cheerfully apologized for the long absence from Toronto — in fact, after leading off with something new ("Liza Forever Minnelli"), he was a joyful presence on stage, countering the darkness in the songs with witty banter and a willingness to pause to tell the stories behind some of the songs. It's pleasing to observe that his clipped, nasal cadences while singing are balanced by a chipper demeanour between songs. He also must have figured his most intent fans would be up close, given a bit of a propensity to chat off mic with the front row between songs.

Although the new album got its due, there were also plenty dips into the band's back catalogue², including "Jeff Davis County Blues" and "Southwood Plantation Road" early on. Musically, The Mountain Goats is a pretty straightforward band, with quick songs and uncluttered arrangements that serve as a delivery system for Darnielle's lyrics. The live band applies a sonic consistency to material from different eras and managed to inject some energy into the songs from the new album (like like "Estate Sale Sign") that flirted with blandness in their recorded versions.

Darnielle chatted about his unusually-large microphone (a repurposed drum mic), and told the story of how Amy Grant inspired him to play without shoes. A quieter solo portion began with "Outer Scorpion Squadron" accompanied only by Semo's keys before Darnielle was left by himself on stage, strumming recent non-album track "You Were Cool" and back-to-back Sunset Tree singalongs "You or Your Memory" and "Up the Wolves".³

There were a few things that I would assume would count as rarities, like "Seeing Daylight" from the 1996 Beautiful Rat Sunset EP — you'd think that most people here wouldn't be familiar with something like that, but the audience was amazingly quiet and attentive. That and "Age of Kings" was part of an quiet-with-band burst, before tearing things up again, starting with "Palmcorder Yajna" and the jaunty "Prowl Great Cain".⁴ There were a couple more deep cuts⁵ before the main set ended with Darnielle relenting to play "No Children", which I think was the most shouted-for song throughout the night. Sometimes the darkest things can be the most cathartic, especially when Darnielle simply held the mic out over the crowd to collectively sing out the refrain for him: "I am drowning / There is no sign of land / You are coming down with me / Hand in unlovable hand / And I hope you die / I hope we both die."

At eighty minutes, that would have been a decent concert. But Darnielle raised the bar when he returned and announced, "I have the day off tomorrow, so I'm going to be straight with you. We're gonna do what the Grateful Dead used to do and just do a second set. [beat] This will be five or six songs instead of the whole set. The reason it's not a whole second set is that those guys were really outstanding musicians and I am just a caveman hitting my guitar with a fist... I think a six-song second set is the best I can do." With that, the band launched into a kick-ass rendition of "Going to Georgia"⁶ from 1995's first full-length Zopilote Machine. It seemed obvious that the band was reaching beyond their standard tour repertoire, as before "Song for Dennis Brown", Darnielle commented, "Wish Yuval luck, he's never heard this song." And similarly, during "Dance Music", Darnielle was twisted with his guitar toward Semo so the keyboard player could see the changes.

There was still time left for stories, including a self-lacerating tale about an ill-considered youthful decision to break up with a girlfriend via letter to introduce "Broom People". And then with a fond good night came the affirming strains of "This Year" ("I am going to make it through this year / if it kills me").

Somewhat to my surprise, the mega-encore was not the end, with the older trio returning for a cover of Nothing Painted Blue's "Houseguest", the band rocking it out as Darnielle's microphone became intermittently unplugged as he fell to his knees, blasting the lyrics to the front row. The whole show wrapped up after twenty-five songs and just shy of two hours, almost enough to make up for the venue.

I'd originally posted a song from this set here, but now I've added a few more here — along with a link to the Live Music Archive, where you can stream or download the entire concert.

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¹ At one point later in the show, a woman behind me shouted up to the stage, "I hate men, but I love you, John!"

² All Eternals Deck is the band's thirteenth album, although those were preceded by a number of early cassette-only releases, to say nothing of singles and EP's. The prolific Darnielle also has a number of side-projects as well, making for a pretty vast body of work.

³ This night would prove a treat for fans of the 2005 album, which was dipped into quite frequently throughout the night, with "Dinu Lipatti's Bones" being surveyed, plus "Song for Dennis Brown" and "Dance Music" in the encore, asfter Darnielle admitted, "we have two songs left and they are also from The Sunset Tree, because that is how I'm feeling."

⁴ "This is a song about a guy who betrayed a guy! Later he felt bad because the guy got held in prison and tortured. That pretty much is what this song is about."

⁵ Including the spare "Snow Crush Killing Song" (from Sweden) and the particularly lovely "Elijah" from The Coroner's Gambit, one of the albums that, to be honest, I never even knew existed before searching for the song's origin.

⁶ Previously an ongoing concern for Darnielle, he has penned nearly two dozen "Going to..." songs.

Gig: The Hidden Cameras

The Hidden Cameras (Gentleman Reg)

The Opera House. Saturday, December 5, 2009.

Back out to the unloved Opera House for this fabulous pairing of acts. As is happened, I had a fine time there this time out — it didn't feel uncomfortably crammed, the door staff were humane, etc. Y'never know what you're gonna get there, I guess. Ran into an acquaintance, J., inside. He'd seen The Hidden Cameras in L.A. before moving to T.O., but he was eager to see them on their home turf — where he was expecting something special and not "just" a gig.

The last night of the tour brought us opener Gentleman Reg in loose and lubricated form, starting things off slow and ballad-style before launching into the "Give Me The Chance to Fall" (from 2002's Make Me Pretty, one of his best tunes¹) and the rocking "You Can't Get It Back". All told, we had a different setlist and a larger cast of characters than his previous appearances this year. With no second guitarist and a pair of borrowed bass players from The Hidden Cameras (Dave Meslin played bass for the first few songs, and then Jon Hynes completed the set), the band was down to a core of Reg plus key co-conspirators Kelly McMichael (keybs) and Dana Snell (drums). But given the pool of Hidden Cameras members available to fill out the sound, this might have been the biggest sounding set from Reg this year. In a burst of end-of-tour/home crowd blowing off steam, there was a loose, party vibe to the whole set, with Reg, apparently getting into the sauce:

Reg: I didn't drink for over three months, and then in Vancouver — in Vancouver I started to drink again... I think I'm more fun when I drink.

Dana: Reg... what else do you do when you drink?

Reg: [smiles, affects innocent look] Oh, nothing. [beat] I just have more fun.²

Meanwhile, the band also essayed a "brand new song" ("it's true, it's true / what they said is true") with classic Brill Building changes and charming backing vox, Joel Gibb and Maggie MacDonald coming out to add some harmonies. Taking further advantage of the troops of the mild-mannered army, "How We Exit" featured a punchy trumpet solo from Shaun Brodie. In a nice bit of catalogue-digging, Katie Sketch came out to add vox to "Untouchable" (from 2004's Darby & Joan), with Reg telling us at the end, "I don't know if it's because I'm drunk or what, but that made me very emotional!" — perhaps appropriately, that was followed up with "To Some it Comes Easy", with its "in time / I'm gonna drink myself into a nursery rhyme" refrain. And then two big dance-frenzy numbers to finishing things out, with Laura Barrett adding extra keyb to a stellar take of "We're in a Thunderstorm" before the set was capped off with "The Boyfriend Song", the back of the stage filling up with dancers as if a sock hop had broken out. With a strongly partisan group of fans on hand — at least up front — this didn't feel like your typical grin-and-bear-it opening set, although it was a superb bit of warming up for the main event.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I'd seen the Cameras at the other end of their tour, at the album release show at Goodhandy's, and it was instructive to contrast the setup and the vibes. Although even that show had the feel of an event, it was ultimately like comparing a high school musical to a Broadway show — bigger and amped up in every dimension. Just like at the Goodhandy's show, the band took the stage to the slow build of "Ratify the New", a couple minutes of mounting drone as the band, in their hooded cowls, took their places before beginning the song proper. But any theories that they might stick as close to the new album as they did at the release party were put to rest as they launched into a couple from 2006's Awoo, including "Follow These Eyes" (in an arrangement with muscular "Billie Jean" drums and bumblebee trumpet) and the makes-sense-when-you-see-it-live "Heji". "Bboy" ramped up the spectacle even further, with banners being waved around and the choir (more than a dozen deep, arranged in two wings behind the band) taking the stage in their ghost-y costumes. And, not for the last time, we were invited to participate: "Why don't you join in with the choir? It's just a little breathing".

Gibb brought back a little bit of Berlin with him, with the ending of "Hump From Bending" melding into a rollicking cover of a German rocker "Macht Kaputt Was Euch Kaputt Macht"³ Gentleman Reg came out with some dance moves in the "see no evil, hear no evil vein" the band exhorted everyone to dance along to "Breathe on It"⁴, reaching all the way back to The Smell of Our Own. "This is just like a revival meeting!" the woman beside me shouted joyfully to her friend.

After "Fear is On", the perienially civic-mined Dave Meslin managed to sneak in a pitch for Beautiful City and the fight for the since-passed billboard tax. ⁵ A bit of a pause for breath with some of the less frenetic material from Origin:Orphan, including "Kingdom Come", "Walk On" and "Colour of a Man". And to those who have harrumphed that this is a new direction for the band, sandwiched in the middle of those was "A Miracle", which was recorded c. 2001, and which complemented them well. Admittedly not all of the new songs are quite up to that standard — I find "Walk On" a but dull — but I think when we look back at this in time, it'll seem like a natural part of the whole.

In a delightfully unexpected turn, the band played "Fear of Zine Failure", which I'm not sure I've ever heard them do live — not for a long time, anyways. And with Maggie MacDonald leading the crowd with some dance moves, it signified that the pause for breath in the middle was done and the party was resuming. Gibb contributed to this by gathering up the length of his microphone cord in loops around his arm and launching himself into the audience, running towards the soundbooth like he was trying to escape the building while singing "Doot Doot Plot". The final four songs of the main set were an O:O mini suite, with the dancey "Underage" leading to a frenetic run through "The Little Bit" before closing things out on the lovely meditative "Silence Can Be a Headline", and suddenly it was like the last slow-dance at the gay prom I never had.

Returning for the encore, the band led off with a cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella", which was popular from a crowd singalong point of view, but didn't really work for my perspective. Things were on a much more solid footing with the band revisiting a few classics, like "Smells Like Happiness" and "Music Is My Boyfriend", all holy hell breaking out on the last one, with members of the audience being pulled up to dance on a crowded stage, and some of the band taking to the floor. It sounded a bit ragged, but it was most assuredly full of the spirit. Although that was probably meant as a ne plus ultra spectacle, the band was called out for one more, to a pretty worked-over stage, to end with the always-triumphal "Ban Marriage".

In the final analysis, I left remembering why The Hidden Cameras are so good. In the treadmill of digging the next thing and the next thing, we sometimes have a propensity to undervalue the bands we already know and love. And while it seems ludicrous to think of the Cameras as an underdog, it seems like most of the local reaction to the new album was a middling, take-'em-for-granted shrug. So a show like this serves as a powerful corrective and a chance to remember how bloody good they are. And in the larger picture, to remember what a joyfully ideal vision of our society they dare to reflect. J. confirmed that this was indeed the sort of spectacle that he'd been hoping for, and I left reflecting on the fact that it's artists like Hidden Cameras that are our city's ambassadors to the world. At a time when out political classes seem eager to increasingly debase themselves on the world's grand stage to score the crassest tactical victories, at least we have an option that we can point to and say, "no, this is what represents me." When our other institutions fail us, The Hidden Cameras make us feel unashamedly like citizens of a more perfectible nation.⁶

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ So consider that one request filled.

² Snell was a worthy comic foil for Reg throughout the night. Later on, in introducing the band, Reg played the diva card to make sure he got the last and loudest applause, and Snell brought him back down to earth, commenting, "Real life begins tomorrow Reg — who's going to cheer for you?"

³ And it took some digging to figure that one out, I tell you what. Check out the original here — it's pretty fabulous.

⁴ "Not bad for Toronto!" was the verdict from the stage.

⁵ Taking up his thought again later on in the show, Mez started singling out people at the front of the crowd by name, telling them to call the mayor — and that if the tax didn't get passed, it would be their fault.

⁶ Even if they travel under their own flag, they still belong to us, dammit.

Gig: Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo / The Horse's Ha

The Opera House. Saturday, October 3, 2009.

And so, for the second night running, headed out to the Opera House. After a decent time there the night before, had some hopes that the venue would do right by me. Wrong, friendo. At the door, the bouncer takes a look at my satchel and I'm emphatically told I have to check it to gain entry. Why? Because it's a sold out show and all bags have to be checked — although purses of any description are apparently fine. I go to the coat check and I'm told that I have to pay separately, three bucks apiece, for my coat and bag — unless I can stuff my coat in my bag, in which case I can check them as one thing. But my bag is pretty small and there's no way it'd fit. So, after a couple moments of frantically transferring all my gear into various and now over-stuffed pockets, I check coat and bag and make my way into the hall, in a grumpy mood. I've just spent the money that I would have used for one of the venue's over-priced drinks, so I just found a spot of wall to lean against for a few minutes to regain my composure and relax. As things start to stir, I move up, taking a moment to admire the giant banner behind the stage.¹ I try to maintain focus as a guy with a bag slung over his shoulder — one a bit larger than the one I was forced to check — walks by in front of me.

Came in not knowing much about opener The Horse's Ha, but YLT usually shows good taste in the bands they choose to share the stage with.² I did know the singer was Janet Beveridge Bean, known for her work in Freakwater and Eleventh Dream Day and a friend of YLT. Hailing from Chicago, the principles are both immigrants to that city — Bean from the American South — charming twang in her banter attesting to that — and James Elkington (of The Zincs) from England. Bean sang and provided some melodica and shakers while Elkington sang in a low baritone not unlike Brett Sparks of the Handsome Family. The two often combined in a high/low harmonies as the band unspooled gentle arrangements around them. The five-piece (including cello and double bass) played in a quiet British folk vein, and it appears some of the band are members of Chicago's jazz/improvised music scenes. The band members members were mostly seated, with Elkington and the cellist facing each other, turned perpendicular to the audience — not a particularly engaging approach. That, plus the fact that their music was quiet and reflective made them a somewhat disjunctive pick as openers, and gave the sense this wasn't the right band at the right time. In a smaller, seated venue this stuff would be wholly engaging. In this big space, facing a largely indifferent crowd, it just didn't work. Listening back to their set, I find myself rather enjoying the songs; though I was trying to get into them while they played, it just wasn't working then.

And then the crowd started to thicken. As I held my spot, the ranks in front of me filled up. I was mostly hopeful that someone shorter than me would settle in front of me, and that made me thankful for the couple who moved into the space. At least until he took off his jacket and handed it to the woman, standing in front of me, who stuffed it in her purse slung over her shoulder, which poked me every time she leaned over to shout in his ear. Sigh. By the time Yo La Tengo took the stage, the floor was pretty packed, as the Opera House tends to get for sold out shows,³ but at least the crowd was pretty much all into it, and no longer talking so much.

With a stage setup that looks like something for a band twice there size — there were at least six "stations" for the three musicians to rotate between — the exciting part of a Yo La Tengo show is that you never know what you're gonna get. One would expect a fair sampling from the new album, sure, but what would the band pick from their vast catalogue to fill in around that? You're probably not going to hear everything you want, but they have enough great songs that you're pretty much guaranteed to get something you really want to hear. As it turned out, taking the stage, the band launched into "Double Dare" (from '93's Painful, possibly my all-time fave YLT alb). You might call this softening up the crowd before moving into new material, but the band wasn't going to do any more easing into it, moving on to nearly twelve minutes of "More Stars Than There Are In Heaven", the night's first extended feature for Ira Kaplan's guitar stylings.

And then a nice mix of new material and old. "The Summer", from 1990's acoustic and mostly-covers Fakebook was one of those unexpected tracks, and a lovely quiet interlude. "Stockholm Syndrome" — James McNew's vocal spotlight — was less of a surprise, having become a crowd favourite. And then the new "Periodically Double Or Triple" — if there's a unifying thread to the band's last couple albums, it might be an attempt to create their own Nuggets box set of all-new songs, such as this 'un, which was great fun to hear on stage.

Ira seemed to be in a buoyant mood, and gave, as usual, some quality banter, including tangential references to the Toronto Raptors and this warning: "at the risk of putter a damper on the evening, in the spirit of full disclosure, I gotta let you know there was a squirrel running around in here earlier today. We're nearly positive it's gone, but, y'know." Meanwhile, the band alternated quiet segments ("Black Flowers", "When It's Dark") with noisy ones ("Deeper Into Movies", "Big Day Coming"). The main set's ending mirrored the start, with a new guitar showcase ("And The Glitter Is Gone") and a classic ("Sugarcube").

Taking the stage for the encore, Kaplan commented he had seen a couple people in the crowd with banana t-shirts, reason enough to pull a VU cover off the pile — although in this case, we got relative obscurity "She's My Best Friend",⁴ which required a short huddle to discuss the chords. And then the seasonally appropriate "Autumn Sweater" in a slightly deconstructed version, before taking a request from the front row for "You Can Have it All", done quietly and acoustically — though the band has dispatched with the dance moves they used to have worked out for this one. Still, very pretty.

Coming back for a second encore, Kaplan sent out a cover of Devo's "Gates of Steel" to local punk crew Fucked Up and the band closed things out, appropriately enough, with "The Hour Grows Late", the entire performance lasting nearly two hours. All told, a pretty great show — this'd be the fifth time I've seen 'em, if my memory is correct, and this would stand up to any of the others. It had been awhile since the bands had passed through town for a full show; hopefully it won't be that long again.

Check out a loud and a quiet selection from this show here.

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¹ The banner employed Dario Robleto's buttons — made from melted-down Billie Holiday albums — as deployed on the back cover of YLT's new album Popular Songs.

² Past successes have included The Sadies, Lambchop, Portastatic and Daniel Johnston.

³ There must be something particular about the Opera House's layout that makes it seem more packed than other venues. Perhaps it's just the fact that the raised area further back doesn't have particularly great sound or sightlines makes it less a enticing place to watch the show sends more people cramming further forward.

⁴ Has anyone ever worked out what percentage of the complete Velvets catalogue YLT have covered? Now that would be a worthy live comp.

Gig: Os Mutantes

Os Mutantes / DeLeon

The Opera House. Friday, October 2, 2009.

Down to Queen and Broadview after work on a Friday evening, headed to the Opera House, one of my less-favourite venues. Too big to be intimate, too small to feel spacious, it's a begrudging destination for bands that are somewhere in that nebulous range of appeal between Lee's and the Phoenix, either of which I'd prefer. It's more tolerable when there's more elbow room, and the smallish crowd early on helped my disposition. A cool and rainy night brought to me another one of the small sadnesses that summer always papers over: you don't have to worry about what to do with your jacket at a gig when the weather's nice.

Came in without much info on opening act DeLeon, knowing only their "hook" — that they do modern-day versions of fifteenth Century Sephardic folk songs.¹ Without knowing that angle, one might just interpret their music as bouncy latin-ized pop — a vast territory of music with a lot of distinct subgenres that I lack pretty much any knowledge of. But regardless of language or style, the band did the first best thing an unfamiliar opening band could do in keeping things upbeat and bouncy. A Brooklyn-based trio consisting of Daniel Saks (guit, banjo) singing in Ladino, Hebrew and English, backed by bass, percussion and laptop beats. My main complaint with the band early on was that, with that laptop on stage, some of the songs felt more "canned" than they should be. And indeed, Saks would later explain that the band usually played as a five-piece including drummer and horn player, but was asked to slim down for touring purposes. A pity, as the drummer's absence was keenly felt, and could have really taken the songs to the next level. As things were, though, it was still a reasonably entertaining set. Saks, in a puffy, lacy shirt, had strong pipes and though things veered a few times towards Starbucks-compilation edgelessness, I had few complaints, even if I was not completely won over. That aforementioned upbeat bounciness will go a long way towards ensuring tolerance.

I came to see Os Mutantes more as a curiosity-seeker than a partisan. Over the years I came to them like I came to a lot of other bands that "received critical wisdom" has collectively accorded retroactive importance to. So I had a basic grounding and an appreciation of why they were important — anarchic hippies for truth and justice, forging a unique Tropicália synthesis of Brazilian rhythms and psychedelic rock. That the band — whose seminal lineup had broken up in the early '70's and had been defunct since the end of that decade — was around at all had been one of those pleasing second act, late-recognition success stories. A 2006 one-off reunion generated enough good reviews and momentum for the band to be re-formed on a more permanent basis, now leading to extensive touring and a new album. The current incarnation revolves around longtime singer/guitarist Sérgio Dias. Besides O.G. drummer Dinho Leme,² the rest of the band are replacements from a younger generation. The band rolled with dual keyboard players, guit, bass and Bia Mendes in the "Rita Lee" role as female vocal foil.

Dias took the stage in a purple cassock, a maple leaf pendant on a chain around his neck. Radiating joyful beneficence, he greeted the audience and commented "I hope you guys have a great trip" before launching into "Tecnicolor". This was followed a version of "El Justiciero" — with Dias tossing in some off-the-cuff Cancon lyrics, including naming the protector coming down from the mountains "Pierre Trudeau".

I felt some mild concern over the course of the first few songs — did they always sound so much like the Fifth Dimension? Was I wrong in remembering the band as leaner and more "rock" than this? Not that the songs weren't good, it just felt like the edge was a little blunted. After the first five songs in twenty-five minutes, I was wondering if I was going to have a good time. Fortunately, the band shifted gears and did a run of songs from their new album Haih or Amortecedor, starting with "Querida Querida", which had a bit more edge. It over-simpifies things a bit, but my enjoyment of the show was mostly proportional to the amount of fuzztone on Dias' guitar.

Introducing the songs from the new album, Dias was humble, expressing surprise that the old songs had outlasted the band and that the reunion happened because of the fans keeping the music alive — the new album being a gift back for the energy they'd experienced. For about three songs, the new material held up well, and perhaps because it was more "owned" by this lineup had a nice freshness to it. This section of the show was sorta subject to diminishing returns though, and by the fourth Haih track, "Bagdad Blues", which didn't really work, I was ready for the band to move along. Fortunately, a shift back to 1971's "Jardim Elétrico" was a revivifying jolt, and started the best stretch of the show, with the band really firing on all cylinders.

This fabulous stretch included "Top Top" and "Neurociência do Amor" from the new album and climaxed with "Balada do Louco" — so lovely that, had Paul McCartney written it, he could have bought the whole of Hampshire and put in a fair bid for Sussex. The main set concluded with a monster version — ten minutes plus — of megahit "Ando Meio Desligado" which had an appropriately lengthy jammy middle, complete with lyrical nods to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". The band came out for a couple songs more, including a rocking "Bat Macumba".

I was rather surprised that I recognized most of the classic material, and the new stuff garnered mostly passing grades. It's probably inevitable that any band playing songs from their glory days more than three decades ago is going to be a bit softer in the middle than they were in the youth, and though there were a few moments of easy nostalgia karaoke, this was, in the end, a good enough show. Praise due to the mutants.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ The band's own claim of "Pre-Inquisition Melodies, post-modernized" has a certain charm to it.

² Dinho was the bit of grit in the oyster for this band. While everyone else was wearing glad-to-be-here grins, Dihno's expression was somewhere between stoic and grumpy as he occupied the role of no-frills Charlie Watts-esque beatkeeper. At the end of the show, when the band came out for the curtain call, arms linked shoulder-to-shoulder and bouncing up and down, he just stood off to the side, smiling politely.

Gig: Ohbijou

Ohbijou / Great Bloomers / Evening Hymns

The Opera House. Thursday, June 25, 2009.

The local CD release party for Ohbijou's excellent new Beacons album was much-anticipated. Even had it gone off on its original late April date, it would have felt rather a long time in coming, with several of the new songs having already had a fairly lengthy tenure in the setlist. But: good things/thems that wait/etc.

I was a tad apprehensive at the fact the gig was at The Opera House — not one of favourite venues to see one of my favourite bands. Though I've seen some great shows there, I've also had some negative experiences including sweaty, claustrophobic overcrowding and muddy sound. While I has hopeful that Ohbijou wasn't going to draw as much from the pushy, angry demographic of concert-goers, I was mildly worried that the room might muffle the beautifully detailed interplay of their sound. At the very least, I thought to myself on arriving, the band was able to use the big stage at The Opera House to their advantage, having taken some extra effort to dress it up with dramatically-hung sheets overhead and so forth.

First up was Evening Hymns, a local-via-Peterborough act, playing a set of Hayden-meets-Counting Crows-eque pop. Frontman Jonas Bonnetta has a plaintive voice and some vaguely pretty tunes that were at their best when delivered with a a six-piece backing band, adding flourishes on keyb, trumpet, and Sylvie Smith's backing vox. It was a spirited set with a nice energy level, but most of it didn't particularly connect with me. There were some good moments, and one winner in a new "Mountain Song" carried by James Bunton's (guesting from Ohbijou) rollicking beat, but overall, count me amongst the unconverted at this point.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I'd seen Great Bloomers in a much smaller room this spring and was left with no strong impression. A bigger room with an enthusiastic crowd did not cause much change. The band is mildly MOR, but not unforgivably so, and actually led off with some fairly strong stuff, but I soon found it sagging a bit. Perhaps the well-executed cover of the Muscle Shoals classic "The Dark End of the Street" revealed the answer — the band's own material (as of yet) just hasn't reached that next level. It did pick up again towards the end — "Dark Horse" and "Speak of Trouble" both demonstrate some emergent popcraft, the former also showing that the band shouldn't be afraid to flex its country-rock muscles.

But in any case, all was prelude to Ohbijou's taking the stage. Boasting an enhanced lineup with extra strings and Kiely Russell's trumpet in addition to the core seven-piece, the band played an hour-long main set, very heavily leaning on the new album — only "St. Francis" from Swift Feet made it into the main set.¹ This garners to complaints from this corner — it's highly exciting to hear the band playing the newer stuff with full confidence and in lush sound. The band seemed rather happy to be playing for the hometown crowd, forging one more connection between band and place to add to the ones they celebrate in their songs.²

There was a good crowd on hand, but down on the floor it wasn't packed in and felt fairly comfortable.³ And the sound, in the end, was pretty good, with all the players audible in the mix and nothing too overpowering. In terms of sheer performance quality, this might have been the best I've even seen from Ohbijou — this band is performing at a remarkably high level right now. There was also a pleasing visual aspect to the show, with the sheets above the band's heads acting as a screen for some live projections of colourful Brownian motion. A three-song encore began with the ineffable sweetness of "Thunderlove" and ended with the all-hands-on-stage percussion spectacle of "The Woods". Quite a time. Ohbijou are one of our best bands, and hopefully this album does them well.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ I can't put a title to the last song of the main set, tho I'm sure I've heard it played before. The lyrics start with "I'll lay it down". Can anyone help here?

² Like the empty hole in Queen Street that always puts an echo of "Memoriam" in my mind when I walk by.

³ Though I have no love for the guy who started loudly yelling "encore!" with two songs left in the main set.