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Monday, October 12, 2009

10.08.2009 Mono / Maserati

I haven't been to the Biltmore in a while, so it sort of surprised me how tiny the place actually is. It's one of those places that are pretty nice on the inside with quite the cozy atmosphere, however with a low stage, it's not really that great if it's packed and you want to see anything below the performer's head.

I arrived at the venue about 5 min before Maserati got onstage and was able to find a decent enough spot. I've only heard a couple of songs from Maserati, one of them is a definite banger, "Monoliths", the other was more of a atmospheric/soundscapes kind of tune. Being my only exposure to them were those 2 songs, I was sort of expecting a "Boris" type of set, half uptempo rockers, and the other half soundscapes, which could go from boring to brilliant depending on mood. Well they ended up going with the aforementioned and not the later. Their set was pretty much all uptempo stuff. Dare I say it, it was dance-y post rock. The crowd seemed pretty into it, actually there was this girl beside me who was pretty much 'rave' dancing. I didn't find it weird at all, until she started doing it during Mono's set. But yeah, awesome stuff from Maserati, although a lot of their songs sound the same...

Maserati Setlist The Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2009, opening for Mono


Mono came out while classical music was being piped out of the PA system, which was kind of interesting. I snuck a look at the setlist during change over and noticed that there weren't any songs before the last two albums. Not that this should surprise me, because even in their last tour, they mainly stuck to recent material. It was a little disappointing that I wouldn't be hearing tunes that I"ve become used to hearing at a Mono concert like "Halycon" or "Lost Snow". If it's any consolation however, their recent stuff does contain songs with the same elements that made the aforementioned songs awesome (crescendos/airplane take offs, chimey melodic songs). Their drummer has a gong as part of his live setup. I never actually saw him use it, though my friend says he saw him hit it during their first song "Ashes in the Snow". If you were near the front row you would have seen Taka at one point in the show on his hands and knees looking like he was overcome with emotions or in a musical trance. At the beginning of Everlasting light there was a pretty cool glockenspiel duet with Taka and the drummer, on two different sets of glocks. There was no encore, just 90 min of emotion rich instrumental musical energy.

MONO Setlist Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2009


$15/$15

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