End of Year Lists

Albums
Converge - Axe to Fall
Regina Spektor - Far
Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
Clues - Clues
Metric - Fantasies
Torngat - La Petite Nicole
Tegan and Sara - Sainthood
Between The Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect
La Patère Rose - La Patère Rose
Julie Doiron - I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day


Honourable Mentions:
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Home Towns (technically it's 2008)




Shows (Vancouver Only)
Land of Talk 11.14.2009
Wintersleep 4.02.2009
Regina Spektor 11.02.2009

Honourable Mention
Torngat 10.16.2009

12.11.2009 Mew / Machu Picchu

The last time I was at the venue lazily called "Venue" it went by the name Plaza Club. Since then it appears to have under gone some renovations. Enlargement of the stage and improved sound system appear to be the biggest welcomed changes.



About a month ago, I saw Machu Picchu opening for Land of Talk. Admittedly, I couldn't really hear anything from the spot I was standing in in November, but for this show I was finally able to catch their set and actually hear the nuances of their set. I still think they're an ok local band. They have this one really catchy song that I liked. Their drummer had a really basic kit. I'm not a drummer but I found it funny that it had his kit had the same number of elements as the rock band drum kit. Their set might have actually been less than 1/2 hour. Maybe it had something to do with them and Mew's tour manager:

"our band opened for MEW tonite at VENUE. MEW's tour manager is a fucking lil prixxx! time to relax. REMEMBER TOUR MANAGER:U AREN'T THE BAND!" via MP's twitter.

If I didn't like Mew, and I was say a random weekend warrior trying to get my party on before the Kid Cudi show (happening later in the evening), I would probably describe Mew's show as boring. Let's face it, they were pretty stagnant the entire time with minimal crowd interaction. However, I'm sure if you are a Mew fan then you probably went to see a band play and not exercise. Their saving grace in the visuals department were their light show/video screens. Lots of really weird, borderline creepy imagery.



This one particular bear image was even synced up to the bassist's vocals, which sort of makes me wonder about backing tracks. Not that they lip sync. The juxtaposition of blinding white light and dim lighting from song to song would probably give some people headaches, but I found it pretty cool. As much as I'm impressed by Jonas' live vocals, I also enjoyed the songs where the rest of the band would do backing vocals and harmonize. The song selection for the night was a mix of old and new. Pretty much a handful from the new album along with most of the staples from the past 2 like 'Am I Wry? No', "156" and 'Zookeeper's Boy'. Really the only song they didn't play that I wanted to hear was 'Snow Brigade'.

$20/$22