10/14/2006

yeesh, there are a lot of shows happening on this day. Plus its also my birthday. I'm already for sure going to the Sufjan show, but yea that 3 inches show also looks tasty. I'm suprised they are still playing shows this small to be honest.


10/14 Sufjan Stevens w/My Brightest Diamond @ St. Andrews Wesley (AA)
10/14 Yo La Tengo @ Richard's
10/14 Ladytron w/CSS @ the Commodore
10/14 Califone @ the Media Club
10/14 3 Inches of Blood w/the Illuminati, A Javelin Reign, and Goats Blood @ the Lamplighter

08.23.06 Darkest Hour / Misery Signals / FSSW

Two shows in two weeks. Not too shabby if I do say so my self. The show was at Richards, which I don't recall putting on too many metal/hardcore shows. The turnout was suprising for me. It was not bad in fact. They even opened up the balcony. I mean it was no where near as full as thw SMZ show last week, but pretty good considering it was Darkest Hour, who has no airplay.

Got to the doors at 8 and got let in about 20 minutes later. Security asked about my cams and said to ask the promoter (who happened to be Vancouver's own Zoe from the defunct Red Light Sting) about perm. Of course it was yes.

First band up was From a Second Story Window. I've really never heard of them before and probably don't care to hear anymore of them. For the most part they weren't very memorable and seemed to be 5 years too late for the kind of music that they were playing. To be honest they were probably only 3 years too late. They played for about half an hour.

Next up was Misery Signals. Apparently they are from Edmonton and the next up and coming metalcore band. They did have a pretty cool t-shirt (think blue shirt with Edmonton Oilers insignia tweaked with Misery Signals). They had a pretty cool turnout. Mostly kids from Surrey and kids just turning 19 it would seem. Apparently they had a really good set at Warped Tour. Their show was pretty good I'll admit... Despite the fact I could swear they stole their setup from the Dillinger Escape Plan. They did play pretty well and were pretty entertaining. Apparently their new album came out the day before. They played a couple of cuts from that as well. Even had a lot of stage divers and crowd surfers despite the lack of crowd density.



Darkest Hour played last. One of the openers, whose name I can't recall had van problems. I was kind of hoping the show would end early so I could go home early. That wasn't happening. I was hoping there wouldn't be rowdies. There was. The worst thing was that for some reason they were using heaps and heaps of smoke. While this is pretty good for a stage show, its horrible for filming. Actually, in retrospect, there was probably too much smoke. Even from the back of the venue it looked like the stage was on fire. From the back it kinda looked like a big cloud of smoke with heads popping out of the smoke every once in the while. Regardless it was pretty good. A huge improvement from seeing them in 2004. Plus they played tranquil a song inspired by John Henry's visit to stanley park. Disappointed that they didn't do any of their crazy stage antics (the pyramid or shredding with the guitar around an audience member). That and they're still only doing pretty short 40 minute sets. I think that set may have even been shorter than the show last year. There was a funny moment after the show with Ryan their drummer.

Ryan walks out
Random guy: Why don't you guys play an encore?
Ryan: Well we normally don't play an encore
Me: Yea but its on your setlist!
Ryan: Yea I don't know why its there.

They also announced that they'll be back here in 2007 to record a new album.

$10/$15

08.19.06 Pride Tiger/Lions in the Street

This is probably the first and last time I'll probably go to the Cobalt. The Cobalt is probably known as Vancouver's only Hardcore and Metal bar. It's also a dive. It probably has one of the Top 5 worst washrooms in the city. It smelled of heavy bleach, so i guess i'll give them some credit as i imagine it was at one time worse that it is now. It was advertised as 8pm doors and 10pm show. Show doesn't really start until 10:30.

The first band was "The People Versus". a white stripes like duo. playing a white stripes like sound. female drummer, male guitarist w/ the ability to make bass like riffs from his guitar. not bad. had a pretty cool sing along song w/ their closer "the lighthouse" (or lighttower or light something i can't recall...)

next band up was lions in the street. have heard a bit about this band. the had problems during their sound check w/ an acoustic guitar. they had to soundcheck it at least 3 times. they've got a real skynyrd feel to them. even dressed in a 70-ish manner. they definitely had the chops tho. excellent guitar work and kept me relatively entertained throughout their set.



east van's own pride tiger rounded out the night w/ a 35 min set (encore included) of fun times. this band gets better everytime i see them. they even had masa (from goatsblood and probably some other bands) come out and do a saxaphone solo. the band had the crowd eating of there hand the whole time. they're so good i'd (begrudgingly) probably see them again at this venue.

$9/$10

08.16.06 Silver Mount Zion / Carla Bozulich

Its been a while since I've made an update. Well technically I probably should've made an update after the Februarys/Elias show, but whatever maybe later. Silver Mount Zion for those that don't know are an offshoot of the incomprable Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Theres also rumors that this is also probably the closest you'll ever see of GY!BE even though they are officially on hiatus (3+ years). Regardless, I hadn't heard too much SMZ so I was ready to be entertained.

Got there around doors, small line up. Suprisingly there were lots of ppl w/o tix there too. Wait about 30 minutes after to offical doors and go in. Stupid Richards and their mandatory coat check. No matter. Go in get my fave spot and wait. Talked to some guy who was 59 and pretty much seeing the same kind of indie shows that I'm seeing.

Carla Brozulich takes her sweet time getting on stage. I think she took the stage at about 9:45 or so. Pretty much all I'm thinking is this is a) going to cut into SMZ's time or b) i'm going to get home well past 1 am. Not really sure how to describe her music. At times its very post rock and improvish. At others shades of slam poetry and as someone else wrote in their review "angry lesbian". It also didn't help that the vocals were getting distorted. She played for what it seemed like almost an hour. The place was packed by the way. Not bad for an opener. Definitely was in tune to what the rest of show would be like. On one of the songs she did do an interesting thing and got right up in the faces of a couple of audience member.



SMZ was next. Like I said, having only heard of Godspeed tunes and never any SMZ songs, I couldn't wait for them to get on stage. The stage set up was very interesting. They crammed 7 members onto the tiny Richards stage. Something i've never seen before was that they set it up like a half circle with 2 monitors in the center. The drummer was pushed off near the back of the stage to the side. 2 guitarists, 2 violinist and 2 cellos rounded out the group. Efrim does most of the vocals with the rest of the band helping out.





The show was pretty much lived up to all the hype. Lots of interesting vocal harmonies and string work. Actually the show reminded me a bit of the Explosions in the Sky show that I saw in 2003. What suprised me the most was that there was quite a bit of stage banter and crowd interaction. I was told Godspeed never even talked to the crowd.

Efrim: I just need to get this off my chest, I hate Douglas Copland
E: I've hated him since I was 20.
Crowd: Elaborate
E: No. I don't have to.

They also talked about Hastings street as well as Bush/Harper and bad sushi.



First set ran a total of 90 minutes more or less. This got me worried as I thought I was going to run out of batteries, however the encore that they did was only 15 minutes. Which in total is more than some shows but I suppose could have been more considering I've heard they've done shows with 20 min intermissions. In any case definitely a show not to be missed.

Setlist (from setlist)
Godbless our Dead Marines
Mountains Made of Steam
MOTEUR?
Horses in the Sky
Take These Hands and Throw Them in the River
Blind, Blind, Blind
--------
encore: A Million Died To Make This Sound

Oh and on an amusing note. There was a bunch of girls who for I have no idea at all tried to force the band into accepting some personal gifts (colourful hand made letters? and a bouquet of ... weeds? I mean seriously this was a 19+ show.





A Silver Mount Zion - God Bless Our Dead Marines (Live 08.16.2006)


$20/$12 never did find out if it sold out or not.
*edit*: it apparently did.

Darkest Hour - The Sadist Nation (live 12.02.2004)

just doing some thinking.

in 2002, i took a chance and saw trail of dead play at a small club, based on hearing only one of of their songs and only being semi impressed. well they ended up winning me over and i've only missed one of the shows since, despite having a similar opinion of their later albums. a few months later queens of the stone age rolled around w/ dave grohl in tow. i don't remember the reason why i didn't go, but i didn't and since then i've only considered them a mediocre band, in fact i found them somewhat boring when i saw them in 2005. i wonder how i'd feel about them now had i seen them in 2002. my point is, not that i need one, is that your first live experience of a band really does have a large impact on your overall impression of that band.

Hank 3

Checked out ticketmaster and looks like this event is cancelled. My guess would be lack of ticket sales.