a day in the life of ...

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Favs of 2008

Favourite Albums of the Year

Land of Talk - Some Are Lakes
Sigur Ros - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Trap Them - Seizures In Barren Praise
Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Jaguar Love - Take Me To the Sea
Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
Coeur de Pirate - Coeur de Pirate
Ladyhawk - Shots
Black Mountain - In the Future

honorable mentions:
The Kills - Midnight Boom
Kings of Leon - Only By the Night

Favourite Show of the Year:
Monotonix 12/29/2008 (I'll have to make a review for this later)

Runner Ups:
1) Video Games Live
2) New Pornographers
3) Wintersleep 2/17/2008

One of the writers of this blog will be moving to Ontario next year so hopefully we'll have some Ontario show reviews. Happy Holidays!

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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

12.22.2008 Metric / Tokyo Police Club / The Dears / Sebastian Grainger

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I'll start off by saying that each show on this tour had ticket proceeds going towards local charities. In Vancouver, the benficiary was Covanent House.

Due to the a little mishap at the door, I did not see Sebastian Grainger's set. He is of course, of the Death From Above 1979 fame. I did however see him in the crowd watching The Dears.

When I eventually got into the Vogue, there were two things that I noticed. First, there were pro cameras all over the place. They built a (probably) temporary platform in the middle of the room to accomodate a large midroom overhead camera setup. All bands were filmed and it looks like we'll be seeing a dvd or video of some sort in the future, hopefully. The second was, it was cold inside. Apparently the heat didn't work in the building. After all those renovations and you guys couldn't spring for heating? Actually nevermind, that actually worked in my favour, seeing as how I didn't want to use their bag check anyways.

Admittedly, I've never really liked the Dears enough to pay to see them live. Their current incarnation doesn't really change my perspective on things, but I will say that I did enjoy their set. For those who don't know, I guess I would describe them as indie rock with soul. Also of note, it was nice to see Chris McCarron, formerly of Land of Talk, still playing music. He's not playing bass anymore, sharing guitar duties with someone else.

Tokyo Police Club is also one of those bands I would enjoy as a opener, but not enough to pay for a headlining set. To be honest, I find most of their songs to be too similar. They did seem to have most of the crowd moving their entire set though.

The last time I saw Metric, the tour was billed as "Road Testing New Songs." That's what they should have called this tour, as there were waaaaaay more new songs played this time around. The majority of the songs played were unreleased. In addition to the pro-cams, there were two large speakers in the back of the room, giving the show a sort of quadraphonic sound experience. Just like the 5.1 surround in your house. It was mainly used during echo-y delay effects. They started their set with their newest single "Help, I'm Alive." Didn't really like the extra backing vocals the guys added during the chorus. "Gold Girls Gun" has a New Wave / Upbeat - Dark Synth feel to it and a cool solo by James. "Twilight" was a slower number. "Lazy Dancer" is a middle tempo mover, which draws similarites to "Hustle Rose." In between the new songs, old favourites like, "Dead Disco", "Handshakes" and "Post of a Girl" were played. The version of "Calculation Theme" I heard last time was played. As I said before, I like the album version better, but I also realize it was probably also be a pace killer when they did play it. They ended their main set with "Stadium Love", which is as you would guess, has stadium rocking potential. After a very short encore, another new song was played followed by an old one. Before the final song, Emily had a little heart to heart with the crowd, sharing some of her insecurities with the audience. She told the crowd that in her head she sometimes thinks her stage antics aren't very cool and other some other self conscious related issues. It was touching, but a little awkward to hear. Live it out was the slow stripped down version, which was a pretty good closer. Overall a pretty nice package of Canadian talent and for a good cause. I was hoping for some Christmas songs...

Setlist
Help, I'm Alive
Give Me Sympathy
Gold Girls Gun
Poster of A Girl
Satellite Mind
Empty
Twilight
Lazy Dancer
Dead Disco
Handshakes
Calculation Theme
Combat Baby
Stadium Love
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Freddie/Black Sheep
Monster Hospital
Live it Out

$40/$0

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Monday, December 15, 2008

11.28.08 Portugal the Man / Earl Greyhound / Wintersleep

So this post is criminally late, but here goes. In addition, seeing as I only went to see Wintersleep (in an opening slot no less), this review is going to be pretty short. After much apprehension and trepidation due to the fact that the show fell on Black Friday (aka the American Boxing Day), we managed to make it to Seattle with only about a 1 or 2 hour delay. Actually this show was slightly different than most that I've seen due to the fact that it was also the first all-ages Wintersleep show. In that regard, as most all agers are, there was already a decent sized crowd before the band hit the stage.


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In a bit of a welcome surprise, there was a significant amount of fellow Canadians who also traversed the border to support their seemingly obscure export. And support they did. For a small contingent, they were quite vocal and somewhat rowdy. The performance went well. Poor Jon Samuel, he experienced at least a couple of technical difficulties during their set. A new song was played to the delight of this blogger. Much different that their previous work. It's kind of a spacey-nerves normal jam-like song. Personally I'm not quite sold on it, but then again I felt that way about 'Dead Letter' (which I don't mind now). I do like the jam that they do on it. I left before Earl Greyhound and Portugal the Man, but I'll assume they were pretty good.


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Setlist
Drunk on Aluminum
Archaeologists
Encyclopedia
Murderer
Laser Beams
Oblivion
Miasmal

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