05.08.2008 Kate Nash

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players opened the show up before I got into Richards on Richards. I had checked out their myspace page the day before and figured I'd be better off watching TV and arriving later.

Generally, you know you're evening is in good hands when the artist you're seeing has won awards in their native country. However, I was a little concerned how long her set would be as she only has one album and it totals well under an hour, but when it was all said and done, Kate played for well over an hour, leaving pretty much everyone happy. The solution to limited album material - fill the setlist with B-sides and new songs. As good as she is on album, she really takes it up a notch live. She started off her set with Pumpkin Soup, which, along with almost all her other non-slow songs, was played about 2x as fast as on cd. The FFW button was left on for a couple more songs until she picked up the guitar to do some slower songs. The highlight of my night was probably the end of Mariella. It's fast enough on album, but live it's .. well it's very very fast. The thought processes that go on in her head would probably induce an aneurysm in mine. During a break between songs, Kate recalled visiting Grouse Mountain, eating at Tomahawk and a gift of lemons by someone in the audience ("you must think I must eat so many lemons..." - if you've never heard 'Foundations'). Not to take away from Kate, but her 3-man backing band was pretty awesome as well. They even had an extra drum piece, which they used for a few songs. The drummer has that sound that would not look out of place in a larger venue. Foundations closed out the main set. I would have left happy, but they played a couple more songs, ending with Merry Happy. Baby Love was on the setlist but not played, as was a song called "Punk Song."

Setlist

Pumpkin Soup
Shit Song
Stitching Leggings
We Get On
Birds
Nicest Thing
I Hate Seagulls
Dickhead
Pick Pocket
Do Waa Do
Paris
Skeleton Song
Mariella
Mothwash
Foundations
===
Don't You Want To Share The Guilt
Merry Happy


$20/$20

11.15.2007 ISIS / These Arms are Snakes / 27

27 are a band from MA. I guess people outside of MA wouldn't normally care about them had they not had an association with ISIS. For those who don't know, 27 lend an extra guitar and vocals to 'Weight' from ISIS' 'Oceanic' album. As a band they aren't bad. Very atmospheric/spacey, (suprise suprise). I thought they fit right in with ISIS' less metal sound.





I didn't really like TAAS' last album. Loved the first 2, but just couldn't get into their latest. That doesn't really matter though, because their live shows are always on fire. (Wow, I could have swapped TAAS with The Blood Brothers and that last bit would have still been accurate) Anyways, the singer made a remark about how they haven't been in Vancouver in 2 years. He then took a swipe at himself by saying it was because they were too busy with America's Next Top Model. If you're looking for a visual, I'll just say that someone in the audience made a joke that TAAS all shopped at H&M. As expected the singer went from well groomed stylish guy to "10 beers under, shirts-off, on x, intense dancing guy pretty fast. It was pretty
awesome. If you're going through The Blood Brother's withdrawal, TAAS is your methadone.





I was really surprised how many people showed up for ISIS. In 2005, Mesa Luna was only sparsely filled. This time it was sold out and there was also lots of moshing, something I didn't miss in 2005. Since it was their 10th anniversary tour, they played songs from their entire catalog. Which is nice because if you've seen them in the last few years, stuff off of Celestial and pretty much anything pre-Oceanic was hard to come by. A lot of Oceanic material was played, including Weight, which included Maria from 27 doing the vocals. I never thought I'd ever hear that song live, let alone with the singer on the album. She sounded better on album though.

$20/$25

11.14.2007 Land of Talk / Said the Whale

Said the Whale is a local Vancouver indie pop/rock band. Recently, they were flown in to Toronto for a youtube.ca launch party after having one of their videos profiled or something on the youtube.ca front page. I know all this because I happened to be talking to one of the singer's dad. How about that for unexpected street teaming? As for the performance, I thought it was just ok. There's potential in there though.



I really really like Land of Talk. So, I can't really see myself ever saying anything bad about them. Today is no different. The band seem to be having a real string of bad luck as they had their gear stolen last month, and most recently Elizabeth's guitar pedal "crapped out." In place of the latter, she was using a borrowed blues driver, which they referred to as the "Blues Traveler." It was funny seeing Chris abandoned his bass to adjust the settings on the Blues Traveler during the solo in "All My Friends". There were also a couple of new songs that I've never heard. There's one they were calling 'Speed', and well ... it kills. I talked to the band before the show a little bit and was told their "new album" has been recorded (twice) and is being mixed or something. They also recorded "Applause..." acoustic when they were in London.







I left before Cuff the Duke.

$14/$15

11.02.2007 Wintersleep / Wooden Stars - Vancouver

I've seen Wintersleep a handful of times now. I've even seen them at Richards on Richards, the same venue that they were playing the show. But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. 2 years ago, they played to a half capacity crowd, so much so that they closed the balcony. They even had their headlining spot stolen by the band The Ladies and Gentlemen, who later became Small Sins. Fast forward 2 years and Wintersleep has now had 2 major radios singles on the radio and have recently put out a remarkable third album, "Welcome to the Night Sky". To top it off, I'm informed that the show is well sold out with about 35 media people on the guestlist.

The Wooden Stars were the opening band for the nights show. Interestingly, the band has been around for over ten years. In fact, they even had quite the media buzz back in 1999 when they won a Juno award for best alternative album. Having recently reunited in 2005 after a 5 year hiatus, the Wooden Stars sounded good and showed a definite sense of maturity in both their music and live playing. Most of their songs were up beat and had a decent groove to it. Although, I wasn't blown away by them,
they certainly warmed up the crowd.





There have been a couple of changes to Wintersleep since I last saw them. Jud Haynes their former bass player has moved to handle more of the website and behind the scenes duties. In his place is Contrived and sometimes Holy Fuck bassist, Mike Bigelow. Incidentally he was also a touring member playing keyboards and whatnot during the last Dependent Music Tour. Jon Samuel looks to be a permenant member as well. Immediately starting the set with "Drunk on Aluminium", the band set the tone for the night. The sold out crowd was very much into the music. Pretty much every song off of the new album was represented at the show. Despite the overwhelmingly large crowd, the band seemed very humble in regards to interacting with the crowd. Musically, however they rocked the show with as much confidence as any band that I have seen. Songs from their older albums were also well recieved, especially "Jaws of Life". The band finished the night with a 3 song encore that included "Nerves Normal, Breath Normal" and "Danse Macabre". Both included extended jams, the former featuring the exquisite drumming of Loel Campbell. Although both of the aforementioned songs were crowd favourites and finely done, having two 10+ minute songs, back to back I might add, seemed almost too over the top and self indulgent. Regardless of all this, nothing could have spoiled this fantastic show.



SETLIST
Drunk on Aluminium
Archaeologists
Calibre
Jaws of Life
Dead Letter and the Infinite Yes
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Orca
Astronaut
Search Party
Faithful Guide
Laser Beams
Miasmal Smoke & the Yellow Bellied Freaks
Oblivion
--------
Migration
Nerves Normal, Breath Normal
Danse Macabre






As an aside, the entire show was filmed by a 3 person crew for what appeared to be, according to a piece of paper taped to the wall in a few places, a dvd release. From what I gather, the people(s) responsible was 'Transmission.' Maybe related to the Transmission festival in December? I doubt it will be in wide public release however, as production seemed stripped down. If I had to guess, I'd say the footage would be used as some sort of promo type material for the Transmission Festival.



$25/$15 SOLD OUT - So good I may have to see it again...

08.15.2007 Pelican / Clouds / Gargantula

It's been a while since I've made an update, and even longer since I've even seen a show (which also reminds me that I have to put up an Explosions in the Sky review eventually). Luckily post-rock stalwarts Pelican are rolling through town again, this time to a much larger room at Richards on Richards. Having seen them twice already, I was almost hesitant to make it a third. I'm glad I did.

The night started off with Gargantula, a band that I've never heard of before. After hitting the stage with little fanfare and even less of an audience (I should note that I wondered why they even opened the balcony), Gargantula launched into a 4-5 minute little instrumental bit full of riffage. At this point, my interest was peaked, until... their singer showed up. After hearing 10 seconds of his vocals, I think I headed outside, catching the tail end of a confrontation between staff at Richards and this... uh guy. I didn't catch the entire conversation, but I think it stemmed from the guy (who was caucasian) calling the staff (who appeared to be East Indian or South Asian or possibly persian) racists and nazis.



Anyways Clouds were up next and were a pleasent suprise. Having only heard one song off myspace and a knowing a little about their pedigree, I wasn't too sure about this band on the onset. Things didn't seem to get any better with the band starting late due to technical difficulties, so much so that they introduced themselves as "Technical difficulties" and "Having a really bad day." However, when they did play, they were definitely were a entertaining. The four piece consisted of 2 guitarists and a bassist, each with a mic for vocals. The band kind of had a psychadelic hardcore sort of feel to them, and the guitars did shred. Pretty entertaining band, and full of energy, hair in their faces and singing their hearts out. I'm guessing the fact that they had so many technical difficulties and car problems stoke the proverbial fire. I really shouldn't be suprised with how well this band turned out, I mean Adam from Cave In does play in this band.

08.08.09 Update: Clouds had this to say about this show:
Vancouver BC: None of us had ever been there. We got lost for three hours and realized one of our tires was on the brink of explosion. The show was probably one of the best of the tour. People got into it and a friendly stranger gave us a whole free bag of mind expansion while we changed our tire outside. Loved Vancouver.



Finally closing out the night was Pelican. As I mentioned in a previous review, prior to 2005, Pelican would've been an OK band to see live. However, it wasn't until last year that they were a great band to see live. Even in interviews, their members have remarked on the apparent apathy towards playing live. Thankfully, as evidenced by last year's show, things have changed and their live shows are markedly better. They seem much more confident and look to be having more fun. Trevor, one of their guitarist, even asked people in the seats to get up and stand closer. Musically they were spot on. Most of the tracks were taken from their latest album City of Echoes. Curiously, I also heard from someone mention that Laurent plays snippets of whatever would be on the setlist during his pre show soundcheck/tune up right before he gets on stage. There was one qualm however. For a band that has 3 solid albums, it was kind of disappointing to only hear 60 minutes. Even Explosions in the Sky have pushed their shows to the 70 mark.







Setlist

Introduction
Bliss In Concrete
City of Echoes
Sirius
Lost in the Headlights
Dead Between the Walls
Far From Fields
Aurora Borealis
Red Ran Amber
===
Mammoth

links courtesy of LMA, mp3 d/ls also here.

______
$20/$20

ps: shout outs to Steve the photo guy for confirming that people actually read this.

06.29.2007 The National

Admittedly, I was sort of back and forth on this show. I didn't really make an effort to get tickets until they were sold out and people were trying to sell tickets on craigslist for $45-50 a pop ($20 face). On a whim, I went down to Richards with low expectations and got into the "no tickets people" line and hoped they would sell more than 15 at the door. Well they did and I got in...

..to find that a band was already on stage tweaking their sound. Now I'm not exactly the National's biggest fan, but I could probably pick out their lead singer out of a line-up of 3-4 other people if they all had distinct faces, and the singer onstage looked like him. Interesting.... At this point I'm thinking that was the National (possibly) on stage, the opener couldn't make it over the border (also possible we found out later that that did happen, and almost arrested apparently too) and that the National would play an extended set starting now:



oops looks I like missed the part when he said "we'll play part of a song." Yep just a late sound check. Still kind of cool I guess.





Well I don't really have much new information to report, aside from the guitarist mentioning that they would be back in September. As other people have suggested during their tour w/ CYHASY, they're much much better live than on album. Lots of energy that you wouldn't expect from hearing their album. They even had a jam-out noise-indulgence thing during the last song where the guitarist broke a string or two.









$20/$20

BT: 03.05.2007 Do Make Say Think DVD

Do Make Say Think
March 5, 2007
Vancouver, BC
Richards on Richards

Video: Realistics 33-1065 > Sony DCR-TRV950
Transfer: MDV-M>firewire>HD
Taper: Steven Mew

Post Production: Final Cut Pro > Compressor > DVD Studio Pro > Toast
menus/chapters/song selection

Lineage: MDV-M > DVD-M

NOTE: THIS IS A DUAL LAYER DISC.

Setlist:
Outer and Inner Secret
Aubere le Mouton Noir
Reitschule
Herstory of Glory
Executioner Blues
Frederica
The Landlord is Dead
Horns of a Rabbit
The Universe!
--------------
Bound to be that Way
Ontario Plates (not taped)

Total: 1:30:54
Size: 6.11g

Video format: MPEG-2, 720x576 29.9 fps (4:3) NSTC, Color, 9050 kbps (monolingual)
Audio format: Dolby Digital AC3, 48000 Hz Stereo, 448 kbps
Audio type: Stereo (2 Channel)

d/l link: here:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=146916

my apologies if you don't have a dime account.

05.05.2005 The Raveonettes/Autolux/The Peels

the last time i really wanted to film a show at the an hob event that wasn't at the commodore, was murder by death and weakerthans at the red room. at the time i really didn't know what to expect. i was prepared to check my gear, and do just audio. luckily (and suprisingly) no one cared, and i had no problems. today was different. when i heard the show was presented by hob, i went ahead and got in contact with the band before hand. they referred me to their manager who referred me to their tour manager. i never got word back from their tour manager, but was prepared to go anyways. after all autolux was playing. this will make it their 3rd time in vancouver in 4 months. not bad. maybe i could convince someone inside to let me film them, if nothing else i can go home and watch tv, cuz tv's really good on thurs.. i was stopped at the door by the security guys. they asked the door girl about video. she didn't know and said she would ask the production manager from house of blues. she looked over her list and said there was no one scheduled for video. i explained both bands shouldn't have a problem with it. she was worried about what the footage was for and about how bands expected presenters like hob to maintain a strict policy towards things like video to keep out bootlegeers (people who end up selling footage). i made a short rant about how 90% of the bands i've asked have had no problems with video (the ones that do i respect their wishes) and it's mainly house of blues who make it hard for me to video. she appeared sympathetic to my cause. production manager came along and we got talking. in his mind no video. i was about leave, when i noticed the door girl checking her list for a guestlist for someone else. whoah. and there's my name at the bottom of the list. i pointed this out to her and she acknowledges this new finding but says it's only a photo pass. i enquire is photo same as video (it is in hob's system)? the production manager seems to have hit a snag in shutting me down. oh and look who just happens pop in - the tour manager for the raveonettes. the production manager refers me to him and leaves. i talk to the tm and find out that he got my email and was busy about confirming. he's hesitant on giving me video clearance. i tell him i'll keep it to myself and reassure him it's only for personal use and not commercial. he seems ok with that. just for kicks i ask him about sbd access. he tells me "i can't let you do that." oh well. moving on, i ask him about autolux and if i can get further clearance to tape them citing i've done it in the past. he tells me it's his jurisdicton. their tour manager isn't crossing the border, you'll have to ask the band. bing-o. this doesn't solve the hob thing though. i was only cleared for raveonettes by hob, not autolux.

i decide to do audio and video seperately. i figure if i get popped i'll still have audio. remarkably, no hitches. autolux played about 35min. which kind of sucked because i was hoping for a longer set like the one on 4.2.2005 they didn't bring their own lighting this time. apparently they arrived at the venue quite late and were unable to setup in time. they played a new song at to close out the set. it started out with mellow with carla singing. goes on for about a min, then some real craziness that i can't possibily describe. lots of feedback and speedy drumming.

Autolux Setlist

blanket
plant-life
sub-zero fun
capitol kind of strain
turnstile blues
reappearing





raveonettes were quite cool. i was going in thinking they were kinda folky rock with a country twang because that one song i heard on their website. nope they can rock out in a white stripes sorta way. sune reminds me of orlando bloom. they did 2 covers. one being "my boyfriends back." it worked for them i guess, with sharin doing the vocals along side back up vocals from the actual song on a tape player. now this albeit is kinda chessy. admittedly it would have worked in my mind if the tape player wasn't considerably louder than sharin's mic on the PA. at least they played their instruments unlike some other bands *coug-ah whatever le tigre. yeah to sum it up good show. and well worth my efforts. even if i was only allowed 5 songs for the raveonettes.

The Raveonettes Setlist

you say you lie
heartbreak stroll
let's rave on
here comes mary
sleepwalking
that great sound love
little animal
my boyfriend's back
attack of the ghostriders
evil l.a girls
veronica fever
red tan
ode to la
love in a trashcan
c'mon everybody
twilight
----
somewhere in texas
do you believe her
cops on our tail