Passenger – The Vogue Theatre – December 12, 2012

Thank you to Concert Addicts (and Nettwerk, I think) for the reviewer privilege - this tome was sent to both and is now posted on the Concert Addicts website. 

It is 8 pm, the lights in the Vogue Theatre are dimmed, screams erupt. Shades of the Ed Sheeran show from early October, I thought. A young man in a sport blazer and cap appears on stage and takes his place at centre stage where acoustic guitars, and two microphones were set up (he also plays harmonica). The audience seemed to have some familiarity with Colin Bullock’s songs. I liked him. He has nice colour and clarity to his voice. The audience was super appreciative and he in turn was grateful for the support. He’s got great vocal control – doesn’t need to be right at the microphone to make himself heard. Bit of an estrogen frenzy afterwards as the first few rows tried to get a handshake or some kind of acknowledgement from the not unattractive Australian-accented artist. As long as Colin was on stage, doing ANYTHING (even unplugging his equipment), hoots and hollers followed him.

Setlist included: Driftwood, Fearless (clappy audience, used his guitar percussively), “Now I Believe In Love” (had the audience on their feet and whooping), Rattle & Bone (a cover, wee bit country in a Copperhead Road way), New York Minute (his iTunes single, audience clapped along for the chorus and a few woos for the quieter bits), Left to Right (his final song, the audience had stood for it and it turned into a standing ovation at its conclusion). 

Next was Joshua Hyslop taking a turn for his half-hour (-ish) set. Again hoots and hollers accompanied him throughout his set. Audience members around me wanted to adopt him or marry him – repeated catcalls of “you’re adorable” rang through the auditorium (his mother in the audience would likely agree). His performance was unaffected by this – even with a candid admission that this was the largest house he’d ever played in front of. He has an easy manner with the audience and a sense of humour. His voice is on the breathy side, his songs are rather lyrical and for all but the last song he was accompanied by a good friend of his with a cello. Unsurprisingly, he also received a standing ovation. His is the kind of music that would be the perfect soundtrack to make a dreary, rainy day feel less dreary. His setlist included: I Wish I Was, Nowhere Left To Go, cover of the Bob Dylan song Shelter From The Storm, a song not introduced with the lyric “I Will Wait For You”, and a cover of the Cat Stevens song The Wind which a number of people in the orchestra recorded on their iPhones.

After about 20 minutes, it was Passenger’s turn. Also a bit breathy in sound, his voice has nice resonance, with a bit of a crackle to it and really nice imagery to his music. He’s a storyteller and he tells them well, but I do have a couple of suggestions. Michael: please drop the “goes (something) like this” at the end of a song intro. It’s a cliché and it’s redundant. You know how the song goes. The audience knows you know how it goes. It’s unnecessary and even a bit awkward. You are better than that. Also, with longer sets come longer stories. The thing he’s forgetting is that he’s a storyteller – by all means, put the story in context, everyone LOVES context, but don’t tell the story and then essentially tell it again in the song. The entire house of 1,000+ people is paying attention to your every word – and, you might fit a song or two more in. The show including encore was 75 minutes in length.

The set: 

• Fear Of Fear – rather short song. Hoots and hollers for the interludes.
• Life’s For The Living – huge audience response and singing for the chorus. I can totally imagine this as a closing song some day, when he can leave and the audience keeps singing.
• Bullets – clappy, clappy from the audience. This is one of the ones he told the entire story as a backgrounder before repeating it to music.
• Caravan -  whistle along song for the audience (collectively, we’re very poor whistlers, but he takes it in stride)
• Sound Of Silence – the Simon & Garfunkel song but he makes it his own. Very evocative, plaintive even, halting phrasing lends effect. The audience hangs on every pause. What the guitar plays is familiar, what he sings is his own.
• Part 1 and Part 2 are introduced by a long story about a former girlfriend. This is one where context is useful.
• 27 – in essence it was dedicated to the dreamers of things other people in their lives deem impossible. The house gets to their feet and this time clapping is solicited.
• An as yet untitled song but “The Only Song I’ll Sing” would get my vote. Really lovely.
• Feather On The Clyde – tries to imitate the trombone during this one. The audience finds his attempt funny as does Michael. The audience sings softly in the background, the soft female voice accompaniment is a nice touch to the feel of the song.
• Let Her Go – hoots. The house stands up again and sings along full voice through the entire song, receiving solo lines for parts of the chorus.  
• Hate Song – last song of the set. Audience again sings along full voice. Michael invites audience to sing along from the beginning, and I got the impression that even people who normally wouldn’t sing did for this one.

Encore:

• Travelling Alone – story about people he met in Copenhagen and Switzerland told. The audience is spellbound for the song’s duration. Even the chatter in the foyer eventually stopped.
• Holes – audience gets to their feet even before the final song is announced and they are asked to clap and sing along after they’d been ‘taught’ their parts. It was unnecessary. They already knew it. 

An evening of great singer/songwriter talent. One would think it would be an evening of sameyness, but maybe that is just what I hear on the radio. The three musicians were varied and each brought something different to the stage. This wasn’t so much a concert as it was a meeting of the ‘mutual admiration society’. The audience, predominantly female or coupled up, was very receptive to the three, young, under-the-age-of-30 musicians singing about love and loss and they ate it up. Michael Rosenberg a.k.a. Passenger was most likely correct in his estimation that 98% of the people were there because he had opened for Ed Sheeran back in October, but he’s doing himself a bit of a disservice. He’s had good exposure since then, I know The Peak was only too happy to have him perform live in-studio earlier in the day and who knows how many other stations have supported his music on air and via satellite. The Vogue Theatre was the third venue for this show, the previous two smaller ones had sold out quickly and this show, too, was sold out weeks in advance. 

This evening restored my faith in the singer/songwriter. In recent years, I’d disliked most of them that have enjoyed popularity and success and frankly, they usually bore me to distraction with their monotony and dross. I was beginning to wonder if I’d gone off them as a genre. Turns out I was missing quality. Tonight, I’m relieved to say I saw some of that again in Bullock, Hyslop, and Passenger. I had a really nice time this evening. Not every show needs to be a ‘dance ‘til you can’t move anymore’, ‘so loud I can’t hear myself think’ kind of night. It’s good for the soul to be able to sit back, contemplate, and watch this up-and-coming talent show what they’ve got to offer, which, as I see it, is quite a bit.

My iPhone photos below - better photos taken by Charles-Mathieu Seguin here.

Colin Bullock

Joshua Hyslop

blurry Passenger. Seriously, you need to see Charles-Mathieu's photos.

The Killers - Pacific Coliseum - December 3, 2012

Attendance at this concert was courtesy of Concert Addicts where this review is "officially" published.

 

The Pacific Coliseum likes punctual starts, I think, because at exactly 7:30 pm, the house lights went out and Tegan and Sara (and band) began playing. At this point in the evening, the General Admission floors are about ¼ full and the seated sections are loosely filled, the lower down, the sparser. The ages are diverse – I see children that look to me to be about 8 years old dancing with their mums, people who definitely remember the ‘80s (maybe even the ‘70s as well), and one guy with a pointy Santa-ish beard I swear had seen his 60^th birthday come and go. A further scan of the crowd, and especially in view of my recent Delhi 2 Dublin experience, and I’m thinking this is not where this city’s multiple ethnicities come together musically – this is a predominantly Caucasian audience with just a little diversity. I am seated just off the equivalent of centre ice, on the house left side of the arena. It’s been awhile since I was here last – so long, I can’t remember. Tegan could (if you have trouble telling twins apart as much as I do, she’s the chattier one of the two), she saw Velvet Revolver here. No reaction from the crowd though. Huh. Who would’ve thunk it? The seats are tight on all sides: my knees had less than an inch of room before they touched the seat in front of me, and I’m a rounded up 5’2”!

I knew a number of Tegan and Sara’s songs before-hand so could sing along to a few choruses. What I didn’t know is that with the twins and the band, there are essentially 5 keyboard players and there are usually 2 keyboard players per song, by Tegan, or Sara, or the bass player, or the guitar player, in addition to the actual keyboard player. All in all, it sounded really good balanced against two guitars.  

The setlist included Back In Your Head, The Con, Walking With A Ghost, Hell, Living Room, Alligator Tears, Where Does the Good Go, Now I’m All Messed Up, Feel It In My Bones, Closer.   

Observations: The Con sounded very strained, Tegan was definitely having problems; Walking With a Ghost was slightly slower than I’m used to but the pace worked nicely; Feel It In My Bones – a full-on synth-pop number and they went for it; Closer I found was a little off-key, flat in parts and a little painful to listen to, which I thought was sad because it is the current single and it’s a really fun song, and with the new CD Heartthrob coming out in January, not the best promotion for it. If I counted correctly, they played 11 songs during their 45-minute set.

I like Tegan and Sara, I really do. I like how their songs can be quirky, I like that they’re not overly long and that they have an ending not a “repeat to fade”. I like the way the twins sound together, I just don’t think this was them at their vocal best. They tried and soldiered on; they made no excuses either, it was what it was and it fell a bit short. I don’t know how long they’ve been on tour, how recently they finished recording their new album, but if this is what normally happens, I would definitely recommend seeing them, albeit earlier in a tour after they’ve had a bit of a rest. They’re absolutely proficient musicians, multi-instrumental, but if you can catch them early enough, you’ll get a more satisfying experience. If you’re not familiar with their music and can navigate pigeonholes, let’s put them in “Indie Synth Pop” for now and see how we go. 

They were both very appreciative of the audience and I do think it was reciprocated – there were even some “I love yous” from audience members, not just those in the front few rows on the floors. The audience, I felt, was there for The Killers, some were even wearing T-shirts from past tours like badges of honour (Hello Mr “Europe Tour 2008”).

Confession time: this was at least the 3^rd time I’d seen The Killers in concert. The first time (that I can remember, I really don’t keep score) was at V-Fest at UBC’s Thunderbird Stadium in 2007, the second time was at UBC’s Thunderbird Arena in 2009, and now, Pacific Coliseum, late 2012. This is truly one of my favourite bands to see live, they understand the audience needs to be a part of the show. From the very first song, Brandon Flowers engages the audience – he greets them right off the bat, there is opportunity for participation with simple ‘sing-it-back-to-me’ phrases, which is good for new or casual fans who don’t know the lyrics to every single song, even if it is the most recent CD release. They play with the audience – there’ll be an intro that doesn’t sound like the regular/from a CD introduction, a pause, and Flowers asks if there are any guesses as to what’s next – at a Killers show, it is virtually impossible to be passive. You have to stand up because everyone around you is standing and you definitely want to see what’s going on. The lightning bolt from the Battle Born cover is centre stage and the back of it functions as the stand for Flowers’s stacked keyboards. A great way to combine form and function (not to mention the branding!).

The Killers also bring an arena show to an arena tour – their designers are not small thinkers: background imagery (cosmos, earth motifs in white fluffy clouds as well as planetary orbiting, what looked like magma drops sputtering in the heart of a volcano, high-speed highway travelling), multi-coloured lighting effects both from lights above the stage and from elements of the set, pyrotechnics - as upwardly directed flames and the kind that resemble welders’ sparks, confetti, during Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine, it seemed like the spotlights (pure white light, no gels) were on speed.

As songwriters, they tend to favour the storytelling tradition, and one of the things that makes Flowers stand out from other front-men is that he’s not only a good storyteller, he’s a credible one; it may not be his own story he’s telling, but he emotes and evokes and it doesn’t seem overblown. He sings it like he means it and the audience believes it. As musicians, they don’t believe in ‘dead air’ – even when Flowers is providing anecdotal background to a song or introducing individual band members, or telling the audience how much they enjoy touring with people like Tegan and Sara – whose music they enjoy and also like them on an inter-personal level, he is being accompanied instrumentally.  

The setlist: A Matter Of Time, The Way It Was, Smile Like You Mean It, Spaceman, Heart Of A Girl, Bling (Confession Of A King), Miss Atomic Bomb, Human, Somebody Told Me, Here With Me, For Reasons Unknown, From Here On Out, A Dustland Fairytale, Read My Mind, Runaway, Mr Brightside, All These Things That I Have Done. Encore: Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine, When You Were Young, Battle Born.      

Observations (I’ve got a few of them): long thunder-like intro between the time the Coliseum goes dark (8:45 pm-ish) until the band comes on stage; spotlight on drums to start The Way It Was; full red effects on set and background and everything for Smile Like You Mean It; Spaceman visuals were suitably cosmic, phrasing was a little more relaxed and ‘off-the-cuff’; Flowers plays the upright piano located upstage for Heart Of A Girl; Bling had gorgeous fiery yellow and brown visuals in the background, very kaleidoscopic; Miss Atomic Bomb had a super nice build to the story, volcano imagery on the back screen; Human had the audience singing along full voice and they keep the energy up for Somebody Told Me (audience cheering erupts for the opening chords and the cheers continue well after the song is done); Here With Me – fabulous storytelling “don’t want your picture on my cell phone”, yup, audience believes it; intro to For Reasons Unknown is unfamiliar, almost a heavy metal sound, that’s one of the ones Flowers asks the audience if they had any guesses as to what the song is going to be; From Here On Out sounded a bit country with Bluegrass-style tight harmonies, audience didn’t know the song well enough to respond to sing-along cues; Dustland Fairytale starts out so lovely and quiet with only the piano as accompaniment then full band brings on full light show, pyrotechnics and on the screen wildly spinning figures via stop-motion/freeze-frame technique – I experienced a bit of sensory overload at this point, stark contrast to what Flowers said the song was about: the loss of a parent; crowd got up again for Read My Mind and for the majority of it, Flowers looked like he wanted to speed it up a bit, but it just trundled along and the vocals for Dave on guitar were up way too high; for Runaway I hadn’t seen the audience this excited since Somebody Told Me and the energy stays right through Mr Brightside during which Flowers is emoting for all he’s worth; audience had a bit of trouble with their bits of All These Things... they eventually got going and when the band came back in the confetti guns exploded and it was a nice bombastic way to end the show (at quarter past 10). The encore began after about 4 minutes of cheering and the departure of the “beat the traffic” folks. Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine had me thinking the operators of the white spotlights were under some kind of influence; I felt the bass reverberate beneath my feet for When You Were Young and there was more pyro to cue ‘the beginning of the end’ of the song; the audience didn’t know what to do for Battle Born, they sat back down, it seemed the safest while the full band was introduced one by one during the extended bridge, each getting their turn at a wee solo and to end the show the crowd surged to the front as Flowers went into the moat to high five what looked like every audience member of the first three rows. It took a bit, but he was determined to make it across the entire width of the audience and he did. Does Flowers have a bit of a musician crush on his guitarist Dave Keuning? To me, it seemed like he was hauling him out into the spotlight every few songs for some reason or another and he’s a good guitar player, with a hairdo reminiscent of Brian May’s and vocals up so high he was actually louder than Flowers a few too many times, but I really don’t get it (the anthem-like melodic phrases that elicit ecstatic reactions from the crowd come from keyboards, not the guitar, and to my ears, he doesn’t do the hooky riffs or anything, does he, so....why?).   

Overall, this wasn’t one of those shows where everyone knows the words to every song. For the vast majority of the people attending (capacity is approx. 16,000, there was no “in the round” seating, so my estimate is between 14 and 15,000 people), they came to see the hits and they got what they came for, for the most part. They knew the words to all the songs but the ones from Battle Born – it was almost like they were auditioning the CD by way of a live performance. At this size of audience you get the fans and you get the lookie-loos. For me personally, I have always liked that The Killers keep me engaged, on my toes a bit during a show, that it is something for most of the senses – as a fan, on a pure personal level, I was disappointed that they didn’t play Bones or Shadowplay, but I still left a happy camper.

Delhi to Dublin - The Commodore Ballroom - November 30, 2012

My thanks to Jamie for the opportunity of reviewing this show for http://concertaddicts.ca.

I’d never seen the Commodore look festive before: the lights and decorations around the pillars on the long sides of the dance floor and garlands strung along the railings made for a really nice atmosphere. The room was comfortably warm and every available seat was taken. The balcony was not open that evening, and as the house right staircase to it was where I chose to 'park', I had the pleasure of advising patrons of this fact over and over again.

At 9:30 Portland’s DJ Anjali came on stage to start her set and there were perhaps 60 people gathered in front of the stage and more trickled onto the dance floor as it progressed. I have to say, the DJ experience is an unfamiliar one for me. For the first 25 minutes I felt like I was watching a music fan dance to the music they like to listen to. Is that what DJing is? Seriously, is it? She did no effects or distortions or anything, she just played one song after another. I will say this for her, and this is an observation, not a critique: Anjali had more energy than the music she was playing, or maybe that is the style.

At about 5 minutes to 10 another DJ takes over (at the end he is introduced as “The Incredible Kid”) and then it becomes more of a show because Anjali then takes left of centre stage and begins to dance for real for about 15 minutes. Then she goes off-stage for 15 minutes and I’m watching a dude head bang and flip through his CD collection. The dance floor is about ¾ full by this point, so I do think it’s me. Anjali comes back briefly, to confer with her colleague and to grab her purse, and comes back to dance during the last song which ends an hour of cool music. She has great energy and has a lot of fun dancing – she obviously enjoys what she does, I’m just not sure I enjoy it as much.     

As a bit of a backgrounder, I had become interested in Delhi 2 Dublin’s music during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics when there was such great buzz surrounding them (even the guys from the Ethiopian delegation I was volunteering with saw them perform and loved them) and since then this “little band from Vancouver BC” continued touring and making music and this is the first time I got to hear them again.

Delhi 2 Dublin begins at quarter to 11 with 4 band members drumming and an electric sitar. As the name would suggest they are a multi-cultural group, one would expect an East Indian contingent from the Delhi side, a European one from the Dublin side, the surprise was the rocking Korean guy on electric sitar and electric guitar in the utili-kilt! Nicely played, I’d say. I also think calling them ‘multi-cultural’ does them a bit of an injustice – it’s a pigeon-hole into a category, and personally, I’d prefer to see this as an example of what ‘normal’ looks and sounds like. It’s reflective of the population in ethnicity and musical taste so why can’t the same go for music production? I’d love to hear this band on mainstream radio.  

The first several songs were in what I presume is Punjabi (but what do I know?), then they went bilingual, then spent some time in English, and just generally mixed it up a lot, I even heard Spanish. It gives me some pause for thought – at the end of the day lyrics are ‘just’ words to the beat and/or melody, and does it really matter what language they’re in? I’d argue no. You either feel a connection to it or you don’t, kind of like the people who play Green Day’s “Good Riddance” as a wedding song because they like the line  about having the time of one’s life, despite the “I hope it was worth it” tone of the song.

Enough digression, I really liked this show. Everyone is multi-instrumental – we start the show with 4 drummers and the electric sitar, and then one of the tabla drummers morphs into the MC taking care of the electronics (Tarun), one tabla drummer is the fiddler (Sara), the other two stay put as they’re the drum kit (Dave) and the dhol drummer (Ravi). Frontman and singer Sanjay also takes a turn on tabla later on in the show. They have elements of coordinated choreography, which when you’re playing an instrument at the same time cannot be easy, but it works really well for them. They have a lot of fun on stage – the fiddle/guitar-off is playful and they can also play ‘proper’ rock (si-/guitarist Andrew crowd surfs when D2D do Fat Boy Slim’s Praise You and it gave the crowd an opportunity to sing as well). Sara takes a turn at a vocal solo song with the traditional She Moved Through the Fair accompanied only by the electric guitar which supports her mostly in the song’s mood, underscoring her strong voice and excellent control. Even when she sings softly, nothing happens by chance. For Love is the Hero, it’s like she’s channelling Dolores O’Riordan a bit.

When it’s 4 drums and the fiddle it sounds incredibly cool. The channel the fiddle was on was sadly inconsistent, so that could’ve been better because if not from the electronics, many times that’s where the melody comes from.  There was full crowd participation for the last song Turn up the Stereo and the tables had emptied long, long before. Delhi 2 Dublin’s set was done after about 90 minutes of playing non-stop (maybe 17 songs or so) and they didn’t make the audience wait long before coming back for a three-song encore which included a special introduction to Dave, the drummer from Brooklyn, who is featured with a drum solo. 

This band seriously impressed me. They show an awareness of the issues Canada is facing, among them food safety, knowing where your food comes from and if it was ‘engineered’ – whatever people’s opinions are about it, and the importance of inner balance to life in general. There is really good positive energy from every member of this band and lots of it. I respect that they also put their money where their collective mouth is: $2 from the sale of their CD “Turn up the Stereo” on sale for $5 went in support of UBC Farm. Sanjay gave it the motto “good beats and good eats”. He is a very good frontman for the band – and with those amazing arms (remember, I was at the back of the room), it’s hard to take your eyes off him. Nice voice too - as polished as you’d hear from an overproduced R&B group – except that it’s just as smooth and polished live as it is on CD (yes, I bought one). Also visible from the back of the room was the smile on Ravi’s face – from start to finish, this guy grinned and drummed his little heart out. 

This was a sort of homecoming for Delhi 2 Dublin – it’s the last show of the tour, the last show of the tour, and there was nothing but heartfelt gratitude and appreciation emanating from Sanjay and Tarun as they shared that with the audience. All’s I can say is “welcome home”. See you again – in the meantime, I’ll be spending some time with the band’s back catalogue and hope to be somewhere in the thick of it when they perform next.  

Image from the band's website at http://www.delhi2dublin.com/bio

Photos from the show by Jamie Taylor can be found here.

Jets Overhead – Joe’s Apartment – Thursday, November 29, 2012

My thanks to Jamie for giving me the opportunity to review this show for http://concertaddicts.ca/

I don’t know why this piece gave me so much difficulty. I have opinions (plenty, usually), that’s why I review events, but this time, I’m left ‘unwowed’ - if anyone reading this had a similar experience or can help me put my finger on it, I’d welcome some insight.

For anyone who’s never been to Joe’s Apartment (this was my first time), it is a narrow rectangular space (maybe 25’ by 120’) – there is a stage at the far end with the word ROCK in solid marquee lights with a balcony above it, for artist gear, and stuff, a quasi-backstage area. There is a huge chandelier hanging over the centre of the dance floor and a few tables and stools in front of plush upholstered benches along the bricked walls. To balance the room, there is a balcony above the foyer/entrance with tables, chairs, the requisite TVs. Although I didn’t like the music that was playing, the space has good sound and an equally good sound system. I was sitting far house left, right by what became the Jets Overhead merch table. Judging by the bannering below the stage, this was an “Almost Famous” showcase presented by The Peak 102.7.

The first band was called “In Bliss” who started at 9 pm with about 50 people in the place. They are a four-piece, acoustic guitar/bass & back-up vocals, electric guitar and lead vocals, drums, and a female singer. The two main singers have a really nice tonal blend to their voices. The four are rather young – university-age, and when performing look rather serious, but not uncomfortably so. That being said, it did rather take a while for someone on stage to crack a smile. Their music is rock/pop and pleasant sounding. The vocals can sound very soft; controlled not weakness. They do a great cover of the Paolo Nutini song New Shoes and really make it their own. Not a lot of song introductions so I can’t report on the names of many songs – one I knew, and one other was introduced as Dust and Bones. They did encourage the audience to come to the front and a few actually listened. By the time their 30-minute set was done, they had played 8 songs and about double the number of people were in the audience. So, a good beginning to the evening.

Next was/were Kytami who had the oddest set-up I’d ever seen on stage: 2 turntables, a Mac AirBook, a drum kit. I knew there was a fiddle because Kytami had done a photo shoot against the brick wall earlier in the evening and she doesn’t let it out of her sight. She came on-stage wearing a costume feather eye-mask that I think may have been passed to a female member of the audience to take turns wearing after a few minutes. But back to the music: DJ, drums, and fiddle totally works! Watching her bowing, I’d say she was classically trained and her music blends DJ beats & drums with traditional (as in East Coast/Celtic) styles, but also classical as she did include Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D, albeit a very rocked-up version of it. It’s hard to tell how many songs she played because as in traditional music, she does ‘sets’ going from reel to reel, jig to jig, moods ever changing by slowing things down and then ramping the energy and speed right back up. She is the one to watch, by her band, by the audience. Kytami oozes confidence – she’s this dark-haired, cafe au lait skinned tiny slip of a thing with a rock chick vibe, which becomes more evident when she uses the microphone like a DJ/MC. She makes use of sampling – plucking and melody overlays to make her sound like a 1-person string quartet, and even while you’re watching her do it, you don’t actually pick up on it until she’s presented you with the finished melodic product. Calling her set “impressive” is an understatement. She played for 45 minutes and had the room under her spell for the duration. And I learned the Ky- in her name is pronounced to rhyme with “pie”.     

Jets Overhead came on just after 11 pm. I really like their music – I bought the CD No Nations years ago and bought Boredom & Joy at the show. I’ve seen music journalists call their music “atmospheric rock”, I prefer to call them almost “ethereal” for certain songs because Antonia’s and Adam’s voices blend so perfectly well and I was glad to hear that this wasn’t an engineered phenomenon – they actually do mesh that well together. This was my first time seeing them live and as much as I truly enjoy their music, their voices, their sound, and maybe it was an off-night for me or maybe it was the problems with the microphones Adam was experiencing, not due to any fault of the band, I felt underwhelmed.

The audience (at this point in the evening personal space on the dance floor was a luxury) seemed to be more familiar with the songs from the No Nations CD than Boredom & Joy (there was a really enthusiastic fan close to me who whooped every time they played something from that CD – which was most of the 15-song set – who I found amusing).

About the set: Love Got in the Way had this very cool borderline disco feel to it, complete with falsetto from Adam; the song I don’t know the name of (it is from Bridges) was difficult to get any lyrics for but it was a nice rockin’ tune for them; I Should be Born was gorgeous and on the CD you don’t hear the wonderful undercurrent from the bass line; the guitar part in the CD’s title track Boredom & Joy had an almost Caribbean feel to it rhythmically and it was really kind of cool; Heading for Nowhere – my favourite bits have always been Antonia’s long phrases on the lyric “we got the time”, but she didn’t do that. Maybe that’s normal, maybe because it was the last song.     

The setlist: Sink or Swim, Beach Dream, Love Got in the Way, No Nations, Sure Sign, Always a First Time, (the aforementioned song from Bridges), Time and Place, Saved by it, Breaking to Touch, Your Desire, Butterflies, I Should be Born, Boredom & Joy, Heading for Nowhere.

There was no opportunity for an encore as the house DJ (who jumped behind their on-stage stations between sets and it seemed to me were loathe to give up the stage for the music-playing talent) was right there on hand to start his set within seconds of the band saying “good night” at just after midnight.

Like I said before, technically there was nothing wrong with the performance, and despite my ‘meh’ overall feeling, Boredom & Joy will be spending time in the CD changer and on the old iPod. 

Image: Cover of Boredom & Joy courtesy of http://jetsoverhead.com/