09.25.2007 Dredg / As Cities Burn

As Cities Burn are on Tooth and Nail records, a record label out of Seattle, WA. Not surpisingly pretty much the whole front row were ecstatic to see them. I on the other hand, wasn't really feeling it and really couldn't understand why they were so popular with the crowd.

I've seen dredg about 10 times now, I thought I'd get bored of them by now, but apparently not. During this show I kept thinking of how the band has changed so much since I first saw them live in 2001. No longer are they the band who played every song as if they wanted to make every note perfect, dredg have really evolved over the years. I remember when their stage was filled with plants and paintings, now just instruments. Gavin, however, does have a typewriter that he types on during the show. He also throws out the typed pages of randomness as souvenirs into the crowd. They played a couple of new songs that haven't been recorded yet. Some songs were even ones that are still in their infancy. There were a few songs that sort of had an 80's "U2" influence, and Dino had a song where he used a drum machine to create a 'techno' like beat. The rest of the show was rounded out by songs from their previous releases. "Yahataze" was definitely a crowd favourite as expected. A markedly different ending/jam during "18 People Living in Harmony", showed how much a song could evolve over the years. As a rather bold choice, "Triangle" was chosen as the closing song. Although not a typical setlist, it was perhaps a setlist which would represent what a Dredg show would be like in the years to come.

Oh yeah and I won the painting.



which is the second time i've won...


(portland 2005)

i'll stop gloating now.
$20/$0

09.24.2007 Dub Trio

To be honest, this really isn't a show that I was really expecting to go to. (fuck you billy corgan) Fortunately, Dub Trio is a pretty interesting band. Combining elements of rock, punk, metal and dub, the band plays a very intricate yet colourful blend of instrumental music. All three of the musicians are beyond talented, even behind all the samples and the plethora of pedals and effects. The songs were fairly well written and the different influences in their music flowed seamlessly, not unlike Secret Chiefs 3. Not necessarily my sort of thing, but the crowd seemed to be into them. Helmet followed, but I didn't go, I had a early drive the next morning...

09.22.2007 Tegan and Sara/Northern State

As expected the girl to guy ratio was somewhere around 4:1. Suprisingly though, I saw a large concentration of dudes in the front row. Vancouver's alternative lifestyle population was also well represented at this show. And since it was the Commodore, the amount of chatterboxes in the crowd was ..well not suprising.

Imagine if one of the Beastie Boys had a sister, and she formed a 'crew' of like minded 'sistas'. There, I just described what the openers, Northern State sound like. They didn't exactly blow my mind. But it did blow my mind later when I read they've had production support from ?uestlove, one of the beastie boys, Muggs from Cypress Hill and others who take them more seriously than I do. I couldn't tell if people were entertained because they genuinely enjoyed them or the irony.

I've known of T+S since about 2003 when I heard "Living Room" off a live recording that was floating around. I even considered seeing their "birthday bash" show at the Mesa Luna, a while ago, but could never really justify it because I didn't think their albums at the time were really that strong overall. 4-5 years later, T+S are putting out better (IMO) albums and with that playing larger venues. I figure I might as well see them now rather than gamble with the seated venues.

T+S played about 1h45 of pretty much all the songs off 'The Con' with older songs/favourites like Speak Slow, Walking with a Ghost, Monday x3, Take me Anywhere, and Living Room mixed in. And when they weren't doing that, they were telling stories of their life in general, which was quite funny and endearing. One such story recalled a period in their life after high school where T+S had decided to play music for a living and then shortly afterwards Sara decided to she wanted time away from T+S. After having seen them live, I realized how much I found Tegan to be a way better songwriter than her sister. I could actually do without a lot of Sara's songs, but I guess that's personal preference. 'Back in your Head' is an awesome song though. There was one song that they played near the end which I didn't recognize and at first wrote it off as an older song that I didn't care for. But then they kept repeating the word "umbrella". It took a little while before I figured out it was Rhianna's Umbrella song. It was alright I guess. As expected T+S encored with Living Room leaving many in the crowd satiated.

$32/$35

[BT] Wolf Parade 09.24.2005

Wolf Parade
Sept. 24, 2005
Artspace
Vancouver, BC

source: DPA 4061>SP-SPSB-1>M1
lineage: Fostex D5>optical>Hossa ODL>IHP-140
editing: lowered a loud area, normalized, fade in/out

01) intro
02) Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts
03) It's a Curse
04) No One Saves the Day
05) We Built Another World
06) You Are A Runner And I am My Father's Son
07) Fancy Claps
08) Shine A Light
09) This Heart's On Fire
10) I'll Believe In Anything

notes: opening for Architecture in Helsinki

torrent here

09.07.2007 Wolf Parade / Holy Fuck /....Fake Shark Real Zombie

I learned two things last night: Sometimes early shows can be a good thing and Fake Shark Real Zombie is easily the best band in Vancouver right now, but more on that later...

The night started out with the sold out Wolf Parade / Holy Fuck show at Richards on Richards. This show had been sold out for well over a month. The last time around, Wolf Parade played at the Commodore Ballroom and Holy Fuck headlined their own Richards show. With the amount of people that were in the no-ticket-lineup, it was obvious that this was the place to be tonight. We can thank Spoon for playing at the Commodore, forcing WP to play at a smaller more intimate venue. Being that it was an early show, there was no local support, cutting out the fluff.



Holy Fuck opened the night. This time around, 'evil supergroup' of Dependent music, cemented by Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh, featured Loel Campbell on drums and I'm guessing Kevin Lynn on bass. It seems they also added a member this time around doing some sort of electronic manipulation. Their set was on the short side, hovering on half an hour. The one new song they played, at the begining of their set, fit quite nicely with their sound. Although, not as blown away as I have been in the past by their set, they're still better than 90% of the bands that I've seen open shows. Other notables: It appears they've gotten rid of the movie projector device.



Wolf Parade got on stage around 8:45 to a packed room of eager Vancouverites. For some reason, there seems to something with WP playing and the room getting hot and sweaty, it also happened last time I saw them at an Artspace in East Van. This meant "shirts off" for some of the bros behind me. WP played around 80 min of mainly new songs. I wish I could tell you the names of new songs, but as you can see, their setlist is limited to one word per line.





Also I'm not very good at generalizing songs, but the new songs were, from what I remember, pretty good. Very fitting of Wolf Parade. There were a few danceable numbers in there too. The crowd was very into it. The dynamics of the tag team song writing team of Spencer Krug and Dan Boekener are definitely a pleasure to see live. WP finished their set with a new song, just as the 10 pm curfew rolled around. It used to be that at early shows (early due to dance night starting as soon as shows ended), if a band finished their main set late, it would be a real struggle to play after the curfew. However, since 1/2 alive's residency, at more and more Friday nights the rock show and dance party now share the same clientelle. So Wolf Parade was allowed to play 2 more songs past their curfew, ending a fairly decent show with crowd favorites, 'This Heart's On Fire' and I'll believe in anything, You'll believe in Nothing'.





$20/$0 Techincally I didn't pay for my ticket (Thanks Loel!), but this was definitely worth the ticket price.

On most normal nights this would have been the end of my night, but this was a weekend and an early show at that, so I head over to Library Square to try and catch Fake Shark Real Zombie.

A local band by the name of Hung Jury started the show. I came there mid set and will only say that I got really bored when they started to jam around. I was told they were to start their set at 11:00 and FSRZ would be on at 12. ( i got there at 11:30 )... and they finally ended at 12:00. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they did not play an hour and just started late, because it always sucks when the band you don't want to see goes on and on and on...

FSRZ are a band that I've been wanting to check out for quite a while. In some ways, I wanted to see if the band was going to live up to all they hype. From stories of insane shows, nods from Henry Rollins and selling out Commodore sized rooms in Japan, all without putting out an album (they did release some vinyl for import only), there were pretty high expectations. Suffice to say, I was floored. Despite playing for only half an hour (second of two bands) and the room sounding like shit, their set was one of the most memorable of the year.

A rundown of what happened:
-beer/ice being thrown during the entire set (at band and at audience)
-fake blood everywhere
-beer shower for the bassist
-mock attacking the crowd with a butter knife
-instruments thrown across the stage



Really made me wonder why it took me so long to catch on to them. I left before Elizabeth. I find it hard to believe anyone could top Fake Shark's set tonight.





$15/$8

BT: These Arms are Snakes 02.01.2004

These Arms are Snakes
February 1, 2004
Portland, OR
The Meow Meow

source:
video: sony dcr trv-18
transfer: MDV-M>firewire>HD
audio: sp-bmc3>sp-spsb-1 batt mod>md-mt180
transfer: MD-M>HD>CD1

Post Production: Final Cut Pro > Compressor > DVD Studio PRO
menu/chapter/song select

Lineage: MDV-M + CD1 > DVD-M

Setlist:

Intro
Drink From the Neck
Payday Loans
Angela's Secret
Grape Dragon
Slow Jam (Your Pearly Whites)
Head Rush (The Shit Sisters)
New Song (Greetings from the Great North Woods)
Run it Through the Dog

notes: Erin Tate (Minus the Bear) is drumming for this show. Song titles are from the setlist, many are pre-album. Show is dark at times, often impossible to see due to lighting. Audio is taken from someone else's minidisc source, transfered digitally if I recall correctly, and upsampled (ovbiously).

Video format: MPEG-2, 720x576 29.9 fps (4:3) NSTC, Color, 8000 kbps (monolingual)
Audio format: PCM, 48000 Hz Stereo
Audio type: Stereo (2 Channel)

you can download it at:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=161139

if you don't have an account... well maybe next time.