tim’s thought property

I suppose this will also have a concert review as well.

Last Saturday at Le Rondez-Vous, a Winnipeg venue, I went to see Broken Social Scene. Marc and I had bought tickets all the way back in October, and I had to do a bit of micro-managing to get a shift switched so I could attend.
Well, the show opened with the Most Serene Republic, a young band from Ontario, on the Arts and Crafts label. These guys took to the stage, with their instruments and showmanship and did a great job. The singer was dressed in a blazer resembling something from Sgt. Pepper’s; in fact with his hair and moustache, he looked like George Harrison. With only a friend’s dictation about this group, I had no idea what to expect. They played strong and tight, one not realizing their youth. They had struck a chord with In places, empty spaces and their song Content was always my favour. But I think hearing Proposition 61 finally made me decide to buy their album.
They have a versatility that is not uncommon with the other bands on this label. When I was watching them perform, I had recollections to Stars, hearing the harmonies with Emma Ditchburn, their female guitarist/vocalist. But to their credit, they are carving their own sound with good use of the keyboard and horns, Adrain Jewett, the singer also plays trombone. Most definitely, Adrian had all the energy needed to drive the show onward.

Taking the stage next was Broken Social Scene, the band all of us had expected to see. The touring group had nine members on stage at its fullest, ten when their sound tech Mitch came in for a song. At it’s peak, the band was boasting five guitarists, two drummers, a violinist and a female vocalist. The crowd was a sell-out, yet the band had fallen to some kind of “last show” sloppiness. Due to the concrete-community-centre-style structure of Le Rondez-Vous, the sound had a bad re verb off the back wall. Combine the fact that they didn’t sound check, and it proved for a difficult flow for the show. Although they played for over an hour and a half, they had constant re-tunings between their songs. At one point the decision was made for the band to turn up their amps to drown out the drums and play on.
Technicalities aside, they performed their songs quite well. KC Accidental and Cause=Time were done to perfection. With the crowd calling out for Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl, the band performed it with new vocalist Lisa Lobsinger. With almost every member having the skill to play a second instrument, it was exciting to watch exactly who played what, at which point and on which song. The show should have ended on the high note of Lover’s Spit, but the encore that happened seemed anti-climactic.
Aside from the silent apathy towards the venue and somewhat lack of involvement with the audience, the show was entertaining. Nobody bats a hundred, or so I’m told. And not everyone enjoys Winnipeg either. I don’t hold it against them.

So, I bought Underwater Cinematographer and You Forgot it in People at the show.
The next week, I purchased O by Damien Rice.
He is an Irish musician, who has quite a talent for writing of love and heartbreak. This album predominantly features acoustic guitar, cello and both male and female parts. There is a richness to the music and a tragedy to it too. Blower’s Daughter is a love song to Rice’s Clarinet Teacher’s daughter; Volcano is a tormented song about two lovers falling apart. I remember is two part song, between Rice and Lisa Hannigan, wherein both recount a relationship’s end, but with two different points of view.
There is a creativity that lies in these songs from clever juxtapositions as in Cannonball: “stones taught me to fly/love taught me to lie/life, it taught me to die/so it’s not hard to fall/when you float like a cannonball“; to the ornate strings on Eskimo. I had listened to this album a lot with Andrew back on the Internship last year, but never fully appreciated it until recently. If anyone knows good music, it is that man.

Now one last thing to takk on.
Interestingly enough…
Marc lent me his copy of Takk by Sigur Ros.
I’ve mentioned these guys before. They’re the atmospheric Icelandic band with the invented language. Their latest album is a tour de force, on the sound-scapes that they so frequently create. With such driving rhythms on Glôsôli and Soeqlôpur it is hard not to repeatedly play them. Track three, Hoppipolla and four, Meà Blôtnasir are kind of in tandem, for Meà… starts off with the rewinding of Hoppipolla. Needless to say I have lost myself in these sounds so much this week. Much to the point where I almost fell asleep before leaving for work.
As opposed to their previous work on ( ), this album seems to have a much more positive outlook and sound. There is a hopefulness in the melodies that ring out on this album.