04.11.2008 AMS Block Party: STARS / Wintersleep / Five Alarm Funk / Most Serene Republic

The AMS Block Party is the offspring of UBC's annual, and now dead, Arts County Fair. Which is rather unfortunate, seeing as the lineup for the last 2 years were really good. So, instead of a large stadium festival type setup, UBC's end of the year drunken festivities were held on a field with a capacity of about 6000. I think I read somewhere that ACF was stopped due to it being too costly and that they had a lot of trouble with overly drunk douche-bags. I guess the reasoning is that, while music and cheap beer will no doubt still bring out the douches, at least with a smaller capacity, there'll be less of them.

I've seen Most Serene Republic 4 or 5 times now. Always in an opening slot. They seem to open a lot of good shows. Frankly, I find them a little boring. However, the 30 or so people watching them seemed to enjoy it.

Five Alarm Funk sound like a group of white guys playing James Brown inspired funk. They were actually well received by the heavily inebriated crowd.



Wintersleep was scheduled for 45 min. They ended up playing about 35 min. The later start time was either due to Five Alarm Funk (although I didn't really like them I won't assume it was their fault as I didn't check when they ended) going overtime or longer setup time was needed (probably more likely?). To make matters worse, apparently there was miscommunication in terms of set times. I believe Wintersleep thought that they had a 60 minute slot instead of their 45 minutes. This meant that 4 songs were knocked off their setlist. I'm actually really enjoying hearing 'Yellow Bellied...' as their usual opener. 'Drunk on Aluminum' worked better as an opener when it was still played with a tambourine. For some reason Paul's acoustic wasn't working so he used a clean electric instead for 'Weighty Ghost'. I was thinking of suggesting they play the old version.

Miasmal Smoke and the Yellow Bellied Freaks
Archaeologists
Dead Letter
Oblivion
Caliber
Jaws Of Life
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Search Party *Not Played*
Astronaut *Not Played*
Laser Beams *Not Played*
Danse Macabre *Not Played*


When I go to shows, I usually hope one of 2 things happen, a) rare songs are played or b) something interesting happens. I got my wish (b not a), even though it sort of resulted in me not enjoying the show as much. By now most of the crowd have been drinking and yes, a mosh pit has started. I'm not surprised, I've seen people mosh for Metric and New Pornographers. Amy and Torq looked pretty concerned, as they stopped several songs mid swing to tell people to calm down. Several times Torq was overhead making thinly veiled insinuations of homosexuality at the offenders. During 'Bitches in Tokyo', this amusing exchange was heard:

Amy: WTF Are you guys in some Apocalypto shit over there? What the hell are you doing? This is not Capoeira class
Torq: Amy it's a mosh pit, it's what the kids do these days Oh wait, it's not 1995

'Going, Going, Gone' was kind of a surprise as I didn't recognize it at first. It's been re-worked, think more synth. Someone threw a bottle at Torq during 'The Night Starts Here', resulting in him walking off stage mid song. He of course came back after taking a minute to collect himself. He was lucky it wasn't a wrench, like the one thrown at Matt Good a couple years ago. Incidentally, the latter was also on the receiving end of one of the former's subtle remarks. Despite all the shenanigans, the band was quite 'on' the entire night. Torq and their keyboardist even came out for an encore, as they still had some time left before curfew hit. I guess he felt guilty for losing it earlier. I was hoping they'd play 'Calendar Girl' instead.

Take Me to the Riot
Elevator Love Letter
Soft Revolution
Window Bird
One More Night
Ghost of Genoa
Bitches in Tokyo
Set Yourself on Fire
The Night Starts Here
Going, Going, Gone (reworked)
What I'm Trying to Say
Reunion
My Favourite Book
Ageless Beauty
Your Ex-Lover is dead
===
Barricade (Torq and Keyboards only)


$20/0 I didn't pay anything, but the Stars + Wintersleep is worth at least 20. I still wish they had the backstage BBQ that they used to have.

photos: Adrian Burden