11.10-14.2010 Wintersleep / Ra Ra Riot / Listening Party / Parlour Steps / Hey Marseilles

Being unemployed/barely employed sometimes has it's advantages. For one you can sleep in until 11 am and go to as many shows as your savings will allow. So when I had the opportunity to see Wintersleep a bunch of times on their Canadian tour, I jumped at it. I was only planning on covering the BC shows because I don't think anyone cares about the US shows, but they do have some other Vancouver content so I might as well squeeze it in.

Seattle



Seattle's always had a pretty weird set of rules against fun (infamous Teen Dance Ordinace or as my friends in Seattle referred to as the "Footloose" laws), so it wasn't really a surprise when I heard that you couldn't have alcohol on stage. Not really a problem for me, but still weird for those who play music.



Never really got to see Parlour Steps in Vancouver so it was nice to finally catch a set of theirs, even if it's not in Vancouver. Most of their songs are mellow indie rock-ish. Crowd seemed to be into them. For some reason I keep getting a alt-country vibe from them, but I can't explain why.



Most people were there to see Land of Pines. You could tell because by the end of the night there were probably only 30 people watching Wintersleep's set. Those that were though, were treated to a encore of Danse Macabre. It was originally supposed to be Nerves, but Danse was requested by one the die hards pretty much the entire night.



Portland






This was at Mississippi studios, which was more like a really small theatre. Very interesting almost vintage vibe to the place. Parlour Steps opened up this show as well. I think i'm they're starting to come around on me. I really enjoyed their set this time. I didn't stick around for Hey Marseilles. I can only say that they sounded like Beirut from what I heard of their soundcheck. Not much to say about this show.

Victoria



Victoria's show was at a medium sized theatre called Alix Goolden Hall. It used to be a church, but is now used by the Royal Conservatory of Music, so you can imagine how cool this venue is. Listening Party's set was probably highlighted by someone in the balcony starting the wave. It took him about 3 tries, but once the rest of the balcony jumped aboard, the whole building ran with it. It went around for 5 or 6 revolutions.

The immense size of the venue, coupled with the awesome lighting made for a fantastic show. My only complaint was the crowd, which was a bit sterile. People who wanted to dance were directed to the side of the venue and security made sure people stayed in their seats otherwise. I know Vancouver has a reputation for audiences not dancing and keeping their hands in the pockets and showing now excitement, but at least they'll stand up at a rock show. Patrons were left sitting, awkwardly, until the encore. Even then the encore songs only had about half the crowd standing.



Vancouver




Listening Party was well received at this show. Probably because they're partly based here. They had fair amount of their fans singing along in the first 5 rows. I'm still not sold on them. Ra Ra Riot's first day on this tour was today. It's kind of weird how the band Rah Rah has also opened up for Wintersleep as well. On the same tour as well. I had checked out Ra Ra Riot when they first started getting a lot of buzz from their first album a few years ago. To be honest, on record, I thought their sound was okay, but nothing spectacular. Their live show has since convinced me that I should revisit their albums. They turned a lot of heads at the Commodore tonight. Might have been the larger stage, but they were pretty energetic onstage, moving around and engaging the crowd who ate it up.



Found out that Wintersleep's show was being recorded for a later broadcast on Sirus Radio. Pretty cool. I wonder how many shows I've been to the Commodore have been broadcasted on Sirius that I don't know about. This show was probably the best one I saw out of the five. Sold out and lots of energy. Nerves was a the perfect closer for the night with it's extended outro and drum solo.

Whistler




Pretty weird seeing Wintersleep in a small venue, Garibaldi Lift Company, which was essentially just a large bar. Ra Ra Riot opening up again. I think the show probably would have done better if it was during ski season, which won't happen until the week or so after. That being said, the venue was decently filled by the time Wintersleep got on. Ra Ra Riot's set was well received, though they didn't move around as much as they did the night before. Smaller stage I guess. Actually the venue had a very living room like vibe to it. Of note, during Wintersleep's set, the cellist and violinist joined in for "Preservation". It was a nice touch. Although it got me wondering why they weren't conscripted for the intro to "Experience the Jewel". Oh well.

Surprisingly, the setlists for the shows were pretty similar. Pretty much a good mix of all 4 albums. Not too many big changes from a year ago. Whistler didn't get "Nerves", which I assume having something to do about hitting the 1 am curfew. Actually one thing I did notice, is that while they do seem to be playing the same number of songs on the set, they're taking less breaks in between songs. A couple of last tidbits. I actually did hear Wintersleep try to work through "Migration" during their soundchecks, but I guess not enough practice. Also the stuffed/toy dog is named Jenny.

02.24.2010 Wintersleep

I never thought I'd get to see another small venue (under 200 cap) Wintersleep show in Canada again, but thanks to the Olympics, Wintersleep was booked to play at the Backstage Lounge as part of a series of concerts put on by the Atlantic Canada House. To avoid another BSS situation, or worse, I figured I'd arrive at the venue at 3 pm to watch the Canada vs Russia Men's Hockey game at 4:30. Mind you, the concert portion of the night had doors scheduled for 10:30 and Wintersleep going on at midnight. On first thought, maybe I went overboard on the getting there early part, but as it turns out, it wasn't such a bad idea. When I got in line there was about 30 people in front of me. At that point they were already at capacity (around 150 cap). When the game started at 4:30, I was about 15th in line. When the game ended, I was able to get in. I think a lot of people who actually watched the game inside also stayed to see the show. I didn't go back outside, but I know for fact they left a lot of people standing outside.

Before the opening act, Shaun Majumder came out and did a rehashing of his Crosby numerology bit.

First act up was Chris Kirby. He reminded me of younger version of Wide Mouth Mason, if they had a piano and not a guitar. He played a loooooong set. I thought he was pretty good. He definitely knew his way around the ivories. My interest in him quickly started to wane after an hour into his 90 min set. The crowd seemed to love him though.

If you read this blog regularly, you'll know that I've seen Wintersleep more times than I really need to. So I'll just mention things that were different. There was a change in the bridge before end of Miasmal. I think John Samuel seems to added some different vocal harmonies to some songs. They played a new song, which people have been calling "Black Camera", the setlist calls it "New Inheritors". "Black Camera" is still sung in the chorus though. Loel added a sampler to his kit. So the stomping/clap intro to "Weighty Ghost" sounds more like the album now. Mike's playing a black Rickenbacker 400x now. Their set was over after 70 min, no encore. I talked to the band afterwards and they mentioned they'll likely be touring Europe and then the U.S before coming back to Canada.


$30/0

07.10.2009 Wintersleep / Mothers Children (Ottawa)

The Ottawa BluesFest is a bit of a misnomer, since it's hardly just music of the blues genre. However, it is a pretty wicked festival. spans almost 2 weeks and brings in all sorts of awesome musical acts. In addition to Stages on the streets of downtown Ottawa, they also have other venues doing smaller regular shows. Anyways, it appears Ottawa has the same problem with live venues that Vancouver does. Apparently this the second incarnation of the Capitol Music Hall. The first one met it's demise when someone decided to build condo's in it's place.



First up was Mother's Children. Possibly without the apostrophe. They were kind of a garage rock band. Lots of energy. However, substance wise, I wasn't really feeling it. Actually the people around me thought the same. As the someone around me pointed out, "all the songs sounded the same." Yeah more or less. Really not the worst opener I've ever seen.



Wintersleep took the stage at around 12:15. Yep past midnight. The crowd was really good. Less of the drunk 'agros' and more of the 'sing along' types. Wintersleep debuted 2 new songs. From the setlist I snagged, it seems like one's called "Experience the Jewel" and "Blood Collection" or "Cat Power", depending on which setlist you have. (My friend's setlist says "Blood Collection", mine says "Cat Power". Paul did say it was tentatively called "Blood Collection" though. The first new song was sort of a down tempo tune, that starts out slow then builds into a nice noisy breakdown where Paul makes a lot of noise on his guitar. Man that sounded like an awful description. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain "Cat Power", only that it sounds like a mid tempo Wintersleep song. They finished their main set with Orca. Sounded really good and really heavy. The encore included one of the new songs while Danse Macabre closed out the night.



Miasmal Smoke & The Yellow Bellied Freaks
Archaeologists
Caliber
Drunk On Aluminum
Astronaut
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Experience The Jewel
Oblivion
Laser Beams
Jaws Of Life
Orca
===
listen [listen, listen]
Blood Collection
Danse Macabre

$30/$0

06.19.2009 Wintersleep / The Clicks / In Flight Saftey (Toronto)

There was a point in time where NXNE and NXNW were pretty much on the same par in terms of quality. No where near the same size or stature of what SXSW is now, but both were growing at a pretty good rate. Somewhere down the road, NXNW completely died, but NXNE seems to have grown up quite nicely. I'm not going to go into too much detail, (seeing as how as I write this it's been over a few days now), but I will say this, the quality of free shows was amazing: Wintersleep, GZA!, the Sonics, The Black Lips and more. It's really a shame NXNW went the way it did.

I think I've been watching too much TV because I could swear that at one of the NXNE booths I saw someone from one of the bands on Much Music's sort of reality band tv show, disBand. The person in question was the blonde from the sort of teen pop duo, that the judges thought were trying to be too sexy for minors, that sung that cheesy song "Sugar Free." Actually what's even funnier, is that I think I also saw the older rapper from Dog Bus shopping at Zehrs with his mom. I need to stop watching tv.

In Flight Safety, are a band from Nova Scotia. They sound like indie rock, I think. I don't really remember to much, except that their singer, unfortunately sounds like Bono. Unfortunate, because that comparison will be made every time someone tries to describe them to someone else, like I just did.

The Clicks, I wasn't really sure if I liked them or not. They're from Toronto, so it was a home town show of sorts, and they might have been an all girl trio as well. They weren't bad, I just didn't really feel a connection I guess.

I stood near the back for Wintersleep, which was actually kind of nice because I didn't need ear plugs. For once I got to hear the songs being played live without the muffle of the ear plugs I normally wear. Anyways, they attracted a really large sized crowd (yeah I know being free helps). Most people seemed to like it as I didn't see very many people leave during their set. Oh yeah all three of these sets were broadcasted live on sirius radio. Pretty cool I guess. Sort of a normal show. The only thing worth mentioning was that after they finished their set, and the Sirius people came on to do their outro talk, about 5 min after the everyone had left the stage, Wintersleep came back on and did Listen (Listen, Listen) as an encore.

Setlist:

Miasmal Smoke & The Yellow Bellied Freaks
Archaeologists
Caliber
Jaws Of Life
Murderer
Search Party
Weighty Ghost
Astronaut
Oblivion
Laser Beams
Baltic
Drunk On Aluminum
Danse Macabre
===
listen [listen, listen]

$20/$0

06.18.2009 Wintersleep / Chris Bell (Hamilton)

This show was sort of a warm up show for Wintersleep as they would be playing NXNE the next day. What was cool about this show was that the venue is a lot smaller than what they would normally play these days. (at least in Canada) Downtown Hamilton (The "Hammer!") is kind of a sketchy place.



I had a chuckle when I saw who was the opener. Chris Bell does sound for Wintersleep. He's from Hamilton so it would make sense for him to open at this particular show. He's also happens to be the drummer for Sons of Butcher. Yep that Sons of Butcher, though I don't think he was ever featured on the cartoon. There are a lot of mediocre singer song writers out there, but Chris isn't one of them. I was pretty surprise how good it was. There seem to be some Neil Young and Radiohead influences going on. He should do the solo thing more often.



I should really stop doing Wintersleep reviews. this blog has done too many of them. Technical difficulties, kept the doors to the Casbah main room's door closed until around 30 min or so before Chris was scheduled to go on. Wintersleep actually started sound checking pretty late, in fact, after the doors were supposed to open. If you were standing by the door, you would have heard Astronaut and a sort of Jam on the Temptations' classic "My Girl". As for the main set, it was one of the longer Wintersleep sets I've seen, around 100 min. The only new song played was Baltic. Astronaut wasn't on the setlist. Insomnia was added to the encore, which was nice because it isn't played often enough. I think I'm starting to like Listen now as an encore. Having seen the band so many times in the past couple of years, it was nice seeing them in a packed small venue.

Setlist:

Miasmal Smoke & The Yellow Bellied Freaks
Archaeologists
Caliber
Jaws Of Life
Drunk On Aluminum
Baltic
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Search Party
Astronaut (not on setlist)
Oblivion
Laser Beams
Orca
Danse Macabre
====
listen [listen, listen]
Insomnia (not on setlist)
nerves normal. breath normal


$40/$0

03.26-28.09 Wintersleep / An Horse

....And on the Vancouver side of things. Its been a while since I've made a post. Almost 4 months in fact. For anyone who actually reads this blog, it's quite fitting that the first (Vancouver-ish) review of the year is none other than a 3 show Wintersleep run. Winding down their successful run of shows supporting their latest album Welcome to the Night Sky, this leg was primarily a SXSW / Westcoast run with An Horse.

Portland
I'm not quite sure if Wintersleep has ever played in Portland before. The venue was double booked. Wintersleep in the smaller room "Lola's" and radio rockers Blue October in the main room, Crystal Ballroom. While the building was quite equipped to handle both shows, there was quite a bit of bleed through from the upstairs room to the downstairs. During many quieter parts, you really could not help but notice the bass coming through. Amusingly, the Blue October seemed to be the running joke throughout much of the night. I actually overheard some of the buildings staff quip during load in:

Guy 1: When is Blue October getting off the stage?
Guy 2: Not soon enough.

The opening band (whose name escapes me) seemed a little out of place. They played a sort of folk/lounge kind of music. I don't remember much, but seem to recall that their bass player was quite good and the singer's voice was good. An Horse, who was playing a co-headlining slot, probably should've taken the headlining slot as about half the crowd left after their set. I'm guessing their buzz can be attributed to their Tegan and Sara vibe as their recent Letterman appearance. But seeing as they only have 1 albums worth of material, I guess it doesn't matter that much. They played quite well, I definitely liked them more than I thought I was going to. Their singer, Kate, even has some amusing stage banter, which I always like.

Wintersleep played quite well considering they just drove 10 hour from San Fransico. The setlist consisted of songs from their last 3 releases. No new songs were played, and no encore was played. The set was about 45 minutes. I didn't actually mind too much. It's nice having long sets, but its also nice having small intimate shows too. This may have happened during An Horse's set, but also of note:

Wintersleep: So do you guys like Blue October?
Crowd: No.
WS: Really why?
Crowd: Because we aren't 12.

Setlist:
Drunk on Aluminium
Archaeologists
Caliber
Astronaut
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Search Party
Laser Beams
Oblivion
Miasmal

Seattle
Seattle was actually somewhat special in that it was one of the only dates that was an all ager. The venue, The Vera Project, was pretty cool. Definitely the best run all ages venue that I've ever been to. If you've ever been to Portland about 5 years ago, it's what the Meow Meow should've been. Clean, decent sound system, with a good lighting system. I've got a feeling that it benefits from grants or some sort of assistance, but still whatever it takes to keep something like this alive is cool.

The first band to hit the stage was an all girl local highschool jazz kind of outfit, Deer Boy. Of their set, 2 things came to mind. The first, they were very good considering how old they were. They were able to hold my interest, which is better than about 1/2 of the opening bands that I've seen in the past. The other was that there was a toddler crawling through the crowd during their set...sigh, comes with the territory I suppose. Deer Boy has some potential. Their stage presence does need some polish however. Their singer appeared distracted/disinterested at times, or maybe just not used to singing and playing the guitar at the same time.

An Horse played another wonderful set with the crowd eating them up.

Wintersleep played a pretty similar set to Seattle. There was one major change. Insomnia was played, which was a nice treat. Miasmal also opened the set, which I always find refreshing. Pretty standard set otherwise, no new songs again.

Setlist
Miasmal
Archaeologists
Caliber
Drunk on Aluminum
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Insomnia
Laser Beams
Oblivion

Victoria
Finally the last show on my run was Victoria. In some ways, this show played out similar to a hometown show when compared to the last couple of shows on the tour. Indeed the last couple of times, they've been Victoria, the crowds have been pretty wild, tonight was no exception.

An Horse took the stage first. No surprises here, crowd loved them. Doesn't seem to matter whether it's in the States or Canada, the crowd was into it.

Before I get to the Wintersleep portion of the review, possibly the coolest thing happened even before the doors opened. For one of the songs, they actually played a rousing rendition of Neil Young's Words. They also soundchecked the acoustic guitar for Assembly Lines, but alas both didn't make it to the show (Words was on the setlist). The Victoria show had a good vibe, but different than the previous nights. This one definitely had the big time sold out feel to it. The setlist was similar to the previous nights with a few additions. The new songs that they've been road testing last year, "Baltic" and "Encyclopedia" are definitely starting to grow on me. "Baltic" especially, since it's got a cool little jam at the end of it. "Danse Macabre" ended the first set, although it didn't have the extended 10+ minute jam. The only disappointing part was that the set was rather short in comparison to the previous Victoria shows. I was told however, that the fact that they haven't really been playing 90+ minute sets probably factored into things (because they were doing shorter sets in Europe and the US). Also they're probably going to be heading into the studio again to record, which hopefully means a new album soon.

$20/$0
$20/$0
$40/$0

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.





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.









Setlist
Drunk on Aluminum
Archaeologists
Encyclopedia
Murderer
Laser Beams
Oblivion
Miasmal

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

02.17.2008 Birds and Batteries / Wintersleep / Radamacher

The High Dive is located in the Fremont area of Seattle. Walking around, it resembles Commercial Drive. (Vancouver reference). Spotting a Matt Good gig poster (at some tavern), a couple of things occured to me. For one thing, the 1-200 seat tavern is a far cry from the sold out small to mid theaters he was playing to just last year. (Relative) success in Canadian markets don't always equate to success in the US, or even filling seats for that matter. To beat the dead horse, last night Wintersleep sold out the ~900-1000 seat Commodore. This particular night they were playing second (3 band bill), in front of less than 20 people, with a birthday party headlining the night. I think I may have even counted members of the other bands. I wouldn't be suprised if there were only 10 paying customers for this show.

Radamacher, a four piece band, opened the night playing indie type rock. I don't remember where they were from but I do remember instrumentally they were pretty good. I didn't like the guitarist/vocalist's singing though. It just seemed out of place. They also played 2 cover songs, which was odd, because I always thought touring bands (ones that don't have 'a tribute to' or 'the music of' in their names) left their covers at home.

Wintersleep played about 40 min and looked pretty relaxed in spite of playing for the sorriest looking crowd they've had to play for in about 2 years. They played without a setlist and pretty much decided on songs as they went along. At one point Paul even asked how long they had left to play. This is the first time I've ever seen a show without Nerves or Danse.

Setlist

Archaeologists
Caliber
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Search Party
Oblivion
Yellow Bellied


San Francisco five piece Birds and Batteries opened their set with a rendition of Neil Young's Heart of Gold. At this point I was thinking, oh gawd, did Wintersleep just open up for a cover band?. Fortunately they weren't a cover band, but they certainly were interesting. They have sort of a alt country / indie rock sort of sound and had a drummer that used laptop loops. This meant they would from time to time, go into electronic techo beat-like passages. As a band they weren't terrible, but their songs seemed to have too much going on. The slide guitar, while nice, didn't add to much to the songs.

Did I mention the night was 'headlined' by a Birthday party.

$10/$6

02.16.2007 Wintersleep / Ladyhawk

Yes I am still alive. After a slow month and a half, 2008 comes back with a killer show at the Commodore. East coast stalwarts, Wintersleep return to another sold out show (rather quickly I might add). Not surprisingly, ticketbrokers were in full effect with single tickets going for upwards to $100. Tonight's show was put together mainly to work around a couple of Japanese dates. Luckily some west coast dates were on the table.

Opening up the night were local Vancouver indie princes Ladyhawk. Despite playing such a large venue for the first time, Ladyhawk felt right at home, literally. You've never seen me write about them because I've never really been motivated enough to get out and check out any of their countless local shows. That being said, I actually enjoyed most of their set. I'll have to give this band some more time to grow on me. Hopefully by the time I'm convinced to see them again they'll still be playing small venues.

This marked the 9th time I've seen Wintersleep. I've been lucky that I've been able to see a non local band this many times in the last 3 years. It was pretty weird seeing them play at the Commodore; the biggest venue I've ever seen them play at (well headlining anyways). I notice that they've got the barricade set up at the front, ends up it's not needed. People seemed content with just singing along and saving the metal theatrics for .. well a metal show. The setlist was pretty similar to the late 2007 shows. The minor differences did keep the show somewhat fresh. Most notably, they opened up with Yellow Bellied; while unlikely, worked out well. Sore was also nice to finally hear live. I've been told that Listen, Listen, Listen was reworked and totally unrehearsed, although I can't say how. Finally, Nerves Normal clocked in around 16 minutes and the jam during Danse Macabre was tightened up. Out of all the shows I've seen they seemed to have the most energy at this show. I think i'll stop writing about here. I've got about 9 Wintersleep fluff posts, I'm sure you get it. This blogger likes Wintersleep.

Setlist

Yellow Bellied
Archaeologists
Dead Letter
Caliber
Jaws of Life
Search Party
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Orca
Sore
Astronaut
Oblivion
Laser Beams
Danse Macabre
==========
Listen, Listen, Listen
Migration
Nerves Normal, Breath Normal

$30/$0 SOLD OUT

11.03.2007 Wintersleep / Wooden Stars - Victoria

This little trip to Victoria, wasn't a spur of the moment thing. It's not like I saw Wintersleep in Vancouver, got blown away and then decided to go to Victoria. Nope, this was planned. I decided I wasn't satisfied with just one show and since Calgary and Kelowna are too far away, Victoria would have to do. I went in expecting I'd be taking a heavy hit with a ferry and hotel fees. What I wasn't expect was to find quite a large number of Vancouverites taking the trip to Victoria as well to see Canada's finest in action in Victoria.

On the ferry over, I was flipping through radio and by chance, landed on the zone 91.3, who had, at that very moment, Wintersleep doing an interview and a performance of an acoustic Weighty Ghost. I believe it was just Paul and Loel. In Vancouver, it was just Paul and Tim. Poor Paul, he must be so sick of playing Weighty Ghost by now.

Sugar Nightclub is actually a pretty nice venue for a nightclub. Highlights of that venue was a well lit room and a sunken dance floor. Real estate up at the stage lip is pretty limited however. This created a very tightly packed crowd with lots of pushing. This seemed to fire up the band, as they were on fire tonight. Every chord and note seemed to played with an emphasis on loud and hard. Somewhat suprising, the university town based crowd even took to moshing during just about every song. They played pretty much 90min on the dot. The setlist was pretty much the same as the night before but in a different ordering. No Danse Macabre. Suprisingly the crowd didn't even put up a fight. There were people near the front who had been yelling out 'Danse' all night, yet headed for the door as soon as the band said goodbye. I was talking to Jon, after the gig and he said that they normally play either Nerves or Danse and not both during the encore. The two 10+ min songs of heavy jam-ery can be a little too much even for the band themselves. I guess Vancouver got lucky. However, I'm still convinced that without a tight curfew, the band probably could have indulged those who had asked during the set, had people only stuck around.





Lastly, some tidbits from the last 2 days. Wintersleep could be back in the states as soon as January. They'll also be in off to Japan for the first time in Febuary. The song "How you lie", which they were playing about a year ago, will be a b-side or import only song. As with one more, which I don't know.







Adrian from One Geeks Opinion also has a video of Dead Letter over at his site.

$20/$0

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...

12.02.2006 Wintersleep/Malajube

So Malajube doesn't allow video taping. got shut down by their tour manager. interesting.. they still put on a pretty decent set. as you can see it's a very similar setlist to their show the day before. still no la russe or even ton plat favori. guess i'll have to wait until a headlining set.

Setlist

Montreal -40 degre Celcius
Pate FIlo
Pirate
Casse-Cou
le Crabe
Etienne D'aout
la monogamie



I guess Wintersleep realized it was the last show of their tour, so they sucked it up and put on a rockin set despite being sick. way to 'leave it all on the field' boys. They opened with 'search party' again. love that song. man, their new album is going to be great. There were extended jams on nerves and dance as usual, different ones than i've seen/heard before. seriously, without being too much of a fanboy, they had so much energy and enthusiasim that you wouldn't think that 4/5 of them were sick. Helping out once again, doing keys/back vocals/guitar was semi-permenant member Jon Samuel.





They played listen listen towards the end, an unexpected treat as it was not on the setlist. Fog was also played with some interesting guitar work by Tim. Would've liked to hear People Talk for once, but you can't get everything. Overall about 80+ minutes of rocking.

Setlist

search party
oh moon and the shiny tamborine
jaws of life
calibre
weighty ghost
murderer
orca
fog
nerves normal, breath normal
migration
listen (listen, listen)
archaeologists
---
a long flight
danse macabre

The only thing that really irked me were the group of people that were beside me in the front row, especially the chick who was having a disruptive conversation during the entire night, and most annoyingly, during listenx3.

30/0 I didn't pay anything but the show was worth at least 30.

12.01.2006 Transmission Festival

The premise of the transmission festival is to take 20 or so of the best unsigned indie bands in the world and bring them to Vancouver to strut their stuff for 200 or so industry reps and delegates. There would be 2 showcase nights, each having 2 stages and live showcases non-stop.

In terms of "best unsigned indie bands", the organizers seem to have gotten the Canadian portion of the roster correct. I can't complain there. The non-North American portion i can't really comment on. However, the U.S portion seems to be lacking in general, or maybe my idea of good indie bands differs from the organizers.

After a bit of research, I find out that the event is being held at the Roundhouse Community and Arts center in Yaletown. Not the kind of place you'd expect to find a show. The venue was remarkably nice. The stage setup and sound were exceptional in fact. Good mixes all night and killer sound. All the sets were filmed in one form or another. Probably done by MSN sympatico for future broadcasts.

I got there pretty early, really just in time to catch Wintersleep doing their soundcheck. Really odd being one of 2 people in the audience. From what I heard, played Archaeologists and Jaws of Life. Talked to Loel for a bit. Found out 4/5 of their members were sick. WinterFlu. heh.



The Little Ones started the night off. They were ok. I think they're twins. Possibly the male version of Tegan and Sara. Sort of an indie dance/pop feel to it.



Wintersleep was awesome as usual. Perhaps a little reserved and (for lack of a better term) sterile (due to the unresponsive crowd).

Setlist

Search Party
Weighty Ghost
Murderer
Orca
Archaeologists
Nerves Normal, Breath Normal

Mr. Hudson and the Library, aside from his somewhat interesting name, was fairly lacklustre.

I checked out CircleSquare because I thought I'd heard of them before. For some reason I thought i recognized them as an opener in the US hardcore or metal scene. After seeing them, I doubt I was thinking of the same band. CircleSquare was fairly boring because of their sound came across as monotonous. If it wasn't' for the fact that they had a video (random footage) going on while they were playing, I would have fallen asleep.

Hawksley Workman did not play his radio hit. (I don't know what it was called, "strip tease for me baby.") Maybe he's serious about getting signed and realized he shouldn't be playing shitty songs. He still does nothing for me.



Out of all the bands I hadn't heard of prior to today, Super 700 was probably the stand out. They're a Berlin based band playing alternative rock in english. Comprised of a keyboardist, bass, drums, guitar and flanked by 3 fairly attractive, on average female vocalists, they held my attention for the the duration of their 30 min set. They kind of remind me of Garbage (the band), pre electronica era.

Last time Small Sins were in town, they stole the headlining slot from Wintersleep. Out of spite I left left early. They're really not that bad of a band. They like to bring the dance party. As a result there were people (just a few) dancing up a storm at the front. Yep, they're a pretty fun band to watch. In my eyes they went from 'wouldn't pay to see them' to 'would watch them if they opened up for someone I like'. Definitely one of the better sets of the evening.

Malajube rounded out the night. I got into the room mid-way through their soundcheck. They were jamming on an instrumental number. Pretty cool. By now it was later on in the evening, weeding out the industry stiffs, leaving mostly fans and dedicated suits. The crowd reaction was really good. They even filled the front of the stage when the singer asked them to come closer. My only complaint was the song selection. I would have liked to hear la russe or some of their other more up tempo songs.

Setlist

Pate Filo
Casse-Coc
Monogamie
Pivate
Etienne

rating:
$20/$0

03.31.06 Wintersleep /Contrived/Jill Barbar

just got back. fun show. 1st out of a possible 4 in 2 days....eep. i need sleep.

Search Party
Jaws of life
Caliber
weighty ghost
murderer
how you lie
nerves normal
migration
listen, listen listen
archaeologist
===
home
orca
danse macabre

rating:
$13/$13 venue was kinda meh, i would have given a higher mark if they played 'people talk'.