mtroads

After a long hiatus, I took in my first real show in a few months on Sunday. The playbill at the Molson Amphitheatre featured three great bands and a show worthy enough to snap me out of my complete apathy towards this blog (even if I posted about the Sloan show first). I had picked up tickets to this event back on April 2nd, so I was relieved to finally have June 8th show up on my calendar.

Nikki and I arrived at the Amphitheatre around six o’clock for what we had heard was a 6:30 start time. Thankfully we didn’t show up too much later. After I brief discussion with Tyrone, I returned to my seat just in time to take in the National’s set. If anyone has actually read my blog, they’ll know that I’ve seen them before and am a big fan of their live performances. The last time I saw the was at the Phoenix and then I was already remarking about how it wasn’t as intimate as the Opera House, so I was really wondering how their show would translate to a much bigger and outdoor venue with a sparse crowd. Thankfully, they did not disappoint. Although they only played for 40 minutes, they only stopped to make a comment about no one having shown up yet (only about 10% of the seats were full when they started) and brought the rock to the rest of the time. It was nice to see they brought a couple of horn players with them to expand their sound a little more. They had a setlist filled mostly of songs from Boxer, their latest, and ended with the always anthemic Mr. November. A great start to the night, even if the experience wasn’t as profound as the other occasions I’ve seen them. By the end of the set, about half the crowd was there and many people were disappointed they didn’t show up earlier after hearing them close of their set.

Up next were the shouting/yelping vocals of Modest Mouse. There were a number of hardcode Isaac Brock fans in the audience that were really into the show. Their setlist was representative of their entire catalog, barely touching on their two newest records (which was really all I know). They brought a lot of energy and got the crowd going. When they closed their set with Float On, the crowd was wound up and singing along. Although, part of that could be that it was the only song the non-Modest Mouse fans knew and could sing along to. It was neat to see Johnny Marr up on stage with them, although he didn’t have much of a stage presence. He just kind of stood there in his rockstar stance and played his part.

After a brief downpour, (really glad I didn’t trade my seats for lawn tickets. It was nice and dry under the roof) R.E.M. took the stage to thunderous applause. I was a little worried about the show because there were still tickets available from Ticketmaster a couple weeks before the show, but the venue seemed packed and ready to hear from the Athens, GA heroes of rock as they were poised to return to their harder-rocking roots. They kicked the set off with the Life’s Rich Pageant rocker These Days. I was really taken aback by the energy they displayed. When I think of R.E.M., I tend to think of the Automatic for the People-era, when they wouldn’t be confused with a high energy rock band. Anyway, they played an uptempo set spanning their entire catalog with an emphasis on newly released Accelerate. If you want to see the entire setlist, you can do it here. The band was entertaining with Michael Stipe constantly moving, breaking mic stands as he danced along with the music. Their set only slowed down for a gather-round the piano acoustic sing-a-long for Let Me In and New Adventures In Hi-Fi closer Electrolite. The crowd was energetic with most people seemingly aware and knowledgeable about every song being played, regardless of the era it came from. That said, they nearly blew the roof off when R.E.M. launched into Losing My Religion in their encore. It was also a treat to see Johnny Marr return to the stage to play Fall On Me with the band. It was neat to see him and Peter Buck playing identical black and white Gretsch guitars. The Smiths and R.E.M. together on one stage. It was every mid-80’s college rock fan’s fantasy. They closed the night off with Man On The Moon and the crowd left happy and entertained. The night was a lot of fun and I left with a different impression of R.E.M. than I began the night with. It’s almost enough to make me check out their newest album.

I got a call from Brad on Monday night asking if I wanted to see Sloan. He had won free tickets from BlogTO and was wondering if I was interested. Naturally, I was. Before heading down to the show last night, I did a quick search and determined that the show was part of the Live at the Orange Lounge series for Sympatico/MSN’s music page. After taking in Sloan’s performance for the SunTV program Beautiful Noise and their impending album release (Parallel Play was released yesterday), I was confident that it would be a short set with nearly all of the setlist coming from the new album. Anyways, I headed on undeterred. Sloan live is a lot of fun regardless of the era they draw material from.

After taking the short street car ride down Queen Street to the Tattoo Rock Parlour, we got in line with about 50 people waiting for the soundchecks to finish up so we could move inside. Upon entering the building, I was surprised to see a fairly small space with a stage at the East, bars at the North and South and bench seating along the West wall. After a few minutes of waiting, an opening band came up and proceeded to play a few songs. I think they were called “Will Curry & The Country Fresh” but I can find no record of that band existing on the world wide web. They were a bunch of high school kids, that were maybe 16, playing some piano-driven, 70’s-inspired pop. The guitarist looked like a younger version of Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock. Anyways, they were pretty good for a high school band and were off the stage quickly, only running through four songs before giving way to the headliners.

After a brief break, Sloan were introduced. By this time the place was packed, although there were probably only around 150 people there. They ripped through three songs off their new album (I’m guessing all that they got paid for) and left. After a few minutes of vocal encouragement, they came back to play Coax Me, The Good In Everyone, The Lines You Amend and two more songs off Parallel Play. They were the typical, slightly unorganized Sloan that we’ve come to love. When they played they were tight, but between songs they seemed unsure of what to play next. Chris Murphy looked like he loved the attention and Jay Ferguson looked like he couldn’t get off the stage fast enough. The crowd was very receptive to the new songs but didn’t really come alive until the first few notes of Coax Me where everyone started singing along to one of the band’s most quotable songs. “I drink concentrated OJ”, “It’s not the band I hate, it’s their fans”, etc.

It was a short night but still a lot of fun for the price. Oh yeah, the highlight of the night may have been when Brad realized they were selling pints of beer for $3. Not even the Done-Right Inn sells them for that cheap.

I just had to take a moment to jot a couple quick points about two albums that missed out on my top 20 because I hadn’t heard them in 2007. The first of which was mentioned already in the comments but the second one is brand new (although you may have heard me rave about the album already).

Firstly, Plague Park by the Handsome Furs needs to be mentioned. I’ve heard it referred to as Wolf Parade with a drum machine and it’s not too far off. That said, it’s still an excellent album and an enjoyable listen. If you like Wolf Parade, you’ll like the album.

Secondly, I need to mention a guy who’s album I’ve listened to so much in the last month that it’s already in my top 10 on my Last.fm profile. I had download a track from Doug Burr’s Promenade album back when it was released thanks to Velvet Blue Music. It definitely fit in with the whole alt-country scene and didn’t seem like anything special. After New Years, I had a little bit of money kicking around and heard some positive review of the album, so I decided to pick it up. It hasn’t left my rotation since then. Doug Burr is a great song writer. The songs are subtle but move at a decent pace. He’s from Texas and there’s definitely a large portion of country flavouring on the disc but it’s just a phenomenal disc front-to-back. It definitely would’ve been in my top 5 had I actually listened to the disc. Anyways, I’d recommend checking it out if you like Wilco and Left & Leaving-era Weakerthans.

Just when you thought this blog was going to go into another extended drought of posts, I bring you one more in my series of recaps of 2007. After discussing the best albums, I thought I’d present my mixtape. These are not all of my favourite songs but ones that seem to fit together when heard.

1. The Almost - Say This Sooner: This is probably the best song of the year to turn up and just rock out to. I wasn’t really fond of the rest of this side project from the Underoath drummer but this song rocks more than enough to make up for it.

2. Tim Armstrong featuring Skye Sweetnam - Into Action: Ever wonder what happened to Canadian pop one hit wonder Skye Sweetnam? Apparently, she went to work with Tim Armstrong. Here she guests on the poppiest song from his reggae record A Poet’s Life.

3. Sev Statik & Dust featuring Elias - Far Cry: I have no idea who Elias is but the other two guys come from two of Christian rap’s most well known crews; Sev Statik from the Tunnel Rats and Dust from Mars iLL/Deepspace 5. This track slows it down a little and it can be a little cheezy but it’s still solid.

4. Fono- On The Line: I’m not sure how this song got included but it seemed like the perfect fit. I had listen to a little bit of Fono’s debut Goesaroundcomesaround in 1999 but lost track of them. They resurfaced this year by giving away copies of Too Broken To Break as a download. It’s got a pretty heavy U2 influence, but still good.

5. The Rentals - Little Bit Of You In Everything: Why can’t they let Matt Sharp back into Weezer? The Rentals released The Last Little Life EP in 2007 and it’s miles better than anything Weezer has done since they reformed.

6. Pneumatics - Right Rear Damage: I talked about these guys a little in my honourable mention posts. This song just name drops a lot of local Winnipeg streets and describes taking in a Jets game. I don’t know if people without this nostalgic effect will like the song.

7. Bishop Allen - Like Castanets: A light song that bops along about a time spent in South America.

8. The Weakerthans - Night Windows: Kind of a morbid song to include (hint: it’s about missing a loved one who’s died) but I love the bass line in the song.

9. Spoon - Black Like Me: The closing track to my favourite album of 2007. Not quite as depressing as the track previous but it doesn’t bring the mood up too much. This song will still be great long after the poppiness of The Underdog has faded away.

10. The National - Slow Show: As we start to build back up, we get this track by one of my new favourites, The National. They’re touring with Modest Mouse and R.E.M. in the spring. It should be such a great show.

11. Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin: And we’re now back to full speed. I’m not sure why but I just love the chorus in this song.

12. Holler, Wild Rose! - Captive Train: Starts out like an African-American spiritual and just builds. It’s a little long at 6 minutes and 23 seconds but well worth it.

13. Cuff The Duke - If I Live Or If I Die: I already talked about this a lot in the top 20. Just enjoy it.

14. Band Of Horses - Is There A Ghost: A great opening track to an album but it gets shoved to the back here. These guys have made a good chunk of money selling songs for commercial use. Too bad it hasn’t led to more radio play (although Alan Cross has name dropped them as a band to watch in his blog).

15. Feist - 1234: Sure you’ve all heard the song thanks to the iPod commercial but it’s still a great song.

16. Starflyer 59 - Minor Keys: This is just a demo from the upcoming Ghosts Of The Future album but it really works as we begin to close out this session. Thanks again to Burnt Toast Vinyl for putting out the 7″ series. Oh yeah, this was ripped off a 7″ record, so it might be a bit quiet.

17. Tumbledown - Atlantic City: Finally we close with Mike from MxPx’s ode to Atlantic City. He likes to brand this as country but I’m not sure it’s completely there. Whatever, it just seemed like the perfect way to end this.

Thoughts?

After a couple days off, I figured that I should probably finish this off, especially since a couple people have admitted to reading this.

2. The National - Boxer: I’ve been trying for a couple days to come up with a short, concise way to describe The National’s sound. The best that I’ve come up with so far is, “soft and subtle, yet surprisingly anthemic”. The vocals are almost mumbled, barely rising above the guitars and drum work. Lyrics are poetic and mostly describe relationships. The instrumentation is surprisingly dense, which, while dominated by guitars, often contain various strings and brass backings. Tracks tend to start softly with a guitar line or piano intro and build, a tactic that allows these songs to work well in a live setting. This album has grown a lot on me over the year. I was initially pretty bored with the disc but was somewhat inspired to pick it up again after seeing them live early in the summer. As the months have gone by, this disc has stuck in rotation, gaining my respect and admiration. Without a bad song, the album is a seamless musical thought, something that’s fairly rare these days.

1. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: While it seems most bands are looking back to the 70’s and the disco era to make their Rock ‘N Roll danceable, Spoon goes back a little further to add a 60’s-like R&B feel to give their songs a bit more propulsion. The album is a little short (clocking in at a quick 36 minutes) but each of the 10 songs is deftly crafted with horns, piano, guitars and a great rhythm section. The album bounces around (especially on super catchy The Underdog) until it hits album closer Black Like Me. This is an enjoyable, complete album made by people who understand how to get the most out of a song without making it too cluttered. Everything has its place and it works. I could go on and on but just go and have a listen.