Right heart, wrong time.
Mar. 1st, 2012 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leahbobetYes, the Indie Rock Signal is in the sky. It's your occasional show report!
Tonight: The Darcys (!!!) and Bombay Bicycle Club (!). Sold out for centuries, moved to a bigger venue, and then sold out again, still centuries ago (okay, like end of December). I have had tickets for millenia (okay, since mid-December). And the logistics around this one have been ongoing and fraught. They only got more fraught when the friend I was supposed to go with, who had already paid for her ticket, told me she wasn't feeling well and couldn't go. An hour and a half before doors.
I have had a bit of a stressy day -- it was one of those at work where you feel like you're always relentlessly behind everything, and I had a freelance job to do over my lunch hour too, so. I did not take this happily. Everyone I could think who'd like said show was busy/working late/etc. when I called them, and so I went home to be pissy and sulk, because I was supposed! to see! the Darcys! dammit! and going to shows alone sucks in a special kind of way.
Luckily, Dr. My Roommate came home, said, "What's wrong?" and when I blatted what was wrong all over the floor, said, "Okay, y'know? If we don't stay for the whole thing? I will go with you." Even though she has exam questions to write.
So we were at the door and leaving 20 minutes later.
I have the best roommate.
Show was at the Phoenix, noted previously as the site of the Meanest Coat Check in the World (seriously, not my favourite venue), so I wore a hoodie instead of a jacket and we just waltzed right in. We made our way into the room just as The Darcys were taking the stage, putting down their beers, and picking up their instruments.
This felt a bit like we had just found Fluffy. Glee. Mood improved already!
Actual set: Kind of short, sadly; it was an second opener set at an all-ages show. But! Even a short Darcys set is better than five long sets from other bands. It was about half the self-title and half from Aja, if I was hearing right, and they opened with...gah. Okay, Don't Bleed Me was early in the set. It wasn't the actual first song.
This independently made Toronto music video contains apocalypses.
Watching them play is actually kind of an athletic thing. For people not familiar, the album I found this band on is actually their second. They used to be a five-piece. Then they had finished recording said album, and their singer left, and they had to rerecord, rearrange, redo everything as a four-piece. So there are points where the singer is hopping between keyboard and guitar, or down on the floor doing effects with the mic, singing crouched. It's not quite shoegazer, but there's an element of improv to it that you usually don't get with a rock band, and it...feels almost more like people making music. Making it physically.
Shaking Down the Old Bones was the second-last song, and it's gorgeous, gorgeous live. Edmonton to Purgatory was the last. I would have loved to hear When I Am New Again to close out the set, but if I can't have that, this will do; it's the song that got me into this band, after all.
I almost had my book launch where this was filmed.
The presentation wasn't perfect. But y'know? I like that. I like that Jason Couse does not have one of those polished, smooth, prepped-up voices, and he goes for all his notes with both hands and his teeth anyways. It makes the things that come out of his mouth raw and real and beautiful.
So I danced a lot, and bounced, and was cheery, and then that was the end of the set. So I honoured my end of the deal and we booked it homewards.
Morals:
1) Whoever made two trainfuls of west end hipsters go all the way to Sherbourne for a show is a bad, bad man. I've never seen so much plaid and black-framed glasses east of Yonge in my life.
-- a) This did feel a little good in that That's right, old neighbourhood. I have returned to pillage and destroy you, at the vanguard of a hipster army!yay west side sort of way.
2) I may need to get over my tendency to recreational musician crushes if I'm going to stay into local/indie bands. Stuff gets awkward when there's actually a real likelihood of finding myself in the same social circles as said people.
3) That said? I love this band's music and I want to marry it, and I think, like Broken Social Scene or Mark Lanegan, I am going to be there every damn time they play, giddy like I'm fourteen.
Thus ends your show report.
Tonight: The Darcys (!!!) and Bombay Bicycle Club (!). Sold out for centuries, moved to a bigger venue, and then sold out again, still centuries ago (okay, like end of December). I have had tickets for millenia (okay, since mid-December). And the logistics around this one have been ongoing and fraught. They only got more fraught when the friend I was supposed to go with, who had already paid for her ticket, told me she wasn't feeling well and couldn't go. An hour and a half before doors.
I have had a bit of a stressy day -- it was one of those at work where you feel like you're always relentlessly behind everything, and I had a freelance job to do over my lunch hour too, so. I did not take this happily. Everyone I could think who'd like said show was busy/working late/etc. when I called them, and so I went home to be pissy and sulk, because I was supposed! to see! the Darcys! dammit! and going to shows alone sucks in a special kind of way.
Luckily, Dr. My Roommate came home, said, "What's wrong?" and when I blatted what was wrong all over the floor, said, "Okay, y'know? If we don't stay for the whole thing? I will go with you." Even though she has exam questions to write.
So we were at the door and leaving 20 minutes later.
I have the best roommate.
Show was at the Phoenix, noted previously as the site of the Meanest Coat Check in the World (seriously, not my favourite venue), so I wore a hoodie instead of a jacket and we just waltzed right in. We made our way into the room just as The Darcys were taking the stage, putting down their beers, and picking up their instruments.
This felt a bit like we had just found Fluffy. Glee. Mood improved already!
Actual set: Kind of short, sadly; it was an second opener set at an all-ages show. But! Even a short Darcys set is better than five long sets from other bands. It was about half the self-title and half from Aja, if I was hearing right, and they opened with...gah. Okay, Don't Bleed Me was early in the set. It wasn't the actual first song.
This independently made Toronto music video contains apocalypses.
Watching them play is actually kind of an athletic thing. For people not familiar, the album I found this band on is actually their second. They used to be a five-piece. Then they had finished recording said album, and their singer left, and they had to rerecord, rearrange, redo everything as a four-piece. So there are points where the singer is hopping between keyboard and guitar, or down on the floor doing effects with the mic, singing crouched. It's not quite shoegazer, but there's an element of improv to it that you usually don't get with a rock band, and it...feels almost more like people making music. Making it physically.
Shaking Down the Old Bones was the second-last song, and it's gorgeous, gorgeous live. Edmonton to Purgatory was the last. I would have loved to hear When I Am New Again to close out the set, but if I can't have that, this will do; it's the song that got me into this band, after all.
I almost had my book launch where this was filmed.
The presentation wasn't perfect. But y'know? I like that. I like that Jason Couse does not have one of those polished, smooth, prepped-up voices, and he goes for all his notes with both hands and his teeth anyways. It makes the things that come out of his mouth raw and real and beautiful.
So I danced a lot, and bounced, and was cheery, and then that was the end of the set. So I honoured my end of the deal and we booked it homewards.
Morals:
1) Whoever made two trainfuls of west end hipsters go all the way to Sherbourne for a show is a bad, bad man. I've never seen so much plaid and black-framed glasses east of Yonge in my life.
-- a) This did feel a little good in that That's right, old neighbourhood. I have returned to pillage and destroy you, at the vanguard of a hipster army!yay west side sort of way.
2) I may need to get over my tendency to recreational musician crushes if I'm going to stay into local/indie bands. Stuff gets awkward when there's actually a real likelihood of finding myself in the same social circles as said people.
3) That said? I love this band's music and I want to marry it, and I think, like Broken Social Scene or Mark Lanegan, I am going to be there every damn time they play, giddy like I'm fourteen.
Thus ends your show report.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-02 02:18 pm (UTC)*whispers* I think I love you.
:)
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Date: 2012-03-03 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 06:13 am (UTC)