Sunday 21 April 2013

Tommy Tiernan - The Centre for Performing Arts - April 19, 2013

This review was written for and published by Concert Addicts. View photographs, including the one below, taken at Victoria's Farquhar Auditorium on April 18 and copyright to Rob Porter (www.rmsmedia.com) here.

To say Tommy Tiernan is a talented comedian is like saying Lionel Messi is a talented footy player – it’s redundant in the same way as it’s an understatement. Giggles, guffaws, chuckles, chortles, snorts and full-on belly laughs interspersed with occasional cringing and groans when uncomfortable truths were laid bare were par for the course at The Centre on Tuesday, April 19. The man is a master at storytelling, and that is his trademark – he doesn’t give a show as much as he’s having a conversation with the audience, the audience’s contribution to it are the non-verbals of laughter and that’s really all they can do because the stream of words from Tiernan’s potty mouth is continuous. He began with a disclaimer that if there was a word the audience didn’t understand, there was a great likelihood it was the name of a town or village in Ireland and the many, many Irish in the house felt right at home. In fact, during the show he mentioned the name of such a village, someone somewhere behind me actually went “boooo”.

In accordance with the stereotype, he received the second loudest round of applause when he told the audience it had been 18 months since he started drinking again. North Americans were in the minority, and to some degree, at a disadvantage. Although Tiernan’s themes included international communication as well as male-female relationships, their ability to relate was affected (either that or they didn’t have a funny bone), because there were many times I was laughing with the rest of the audience and there was silence to the left and right of me – and the seats weren’t empty. From whispers to full-on screeches, Tiernan has a great set of pipes and rather delicate mannerisms. Singing may not be his forte, but, he makes the most of his other talents.

I thought it was charming how he’s made his way across Canada on this 12-city tour and during that time Canada has made it into his act. The people, the places, and the sheer size of the country. Ask him about Glace Bay next time you see him.

The mystery of the red balloon that spent the duration of the show in a prominent location downstage was solved when it was the prop for a joke near the end of the show. Turns out its intended use is that of a signalling device and it nearly brought the house down with laughter. You can tell he enjoys what he does by how many times he cracks himself up with laughter as he goes on for 85 minutes (not including the 25-minute interval) of story after story: the sounds of Donegal, a cure for ED, priest-magicians, examples of `Basic Irish Decency’. One of the funniest parts of the night was when he was talking about and singing Irish Mass. You could tell the Irish in the audience were frantically trying to dust off their memories trying to recover the appropriate responses. They got louder and more confident as the bit continued, but everyone, including (especially Tiernan) was laughing. He concluded there was no point in them coming home. Laughter. Applause. Standing ovation at the end. Natch.

When Tommy Tiernan comes to Vancouver, it’s an occasion. And it’s an occasion not to be missed.

Defiance - Pilot: Recap and Review

This review was written for and published by the Pop Goes the World blog. Typos from that post-midnight recap have been corrected here.

I’m not a huge follower of hype, so for Defiance, I’ve looked at pedigree for my research – behind the scenes and on camera. Creatively, this show looks to be in solid hands including those of:
Rockne S O’Bannon – developed the show, is a co-executive producer, most notable previous project: Farscape (which I really liked, except Crichton did get annoyingly whiny as the series progressed) as well as Seaquest DSV, V, Cult, and Twilight Zone either as creator or writer.
Kevin Murphy – co-executive producer: most notable previous mass appeal project: Desperate Housewives as writer and producer, for sci-fi: showrunner on Caprica, BSG’s prequel and Reaper for which he was a co-executive producer and writer.
Michael Taylor – co-executive producer, most notable previous projects include Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and Battlestar Galactica as screenwriter.
Bear McCreary – composer, most notable previous projects: Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Caprica, Human Target, The Walking Dead  and another fledgling show, Da Vinci’s Demons (both concurrently with Defiance)
David J Peterson – linguist, created the Dothraki language on Game of Thrones and created two languages for Defiance.

Let’s see whose faces we (I) recognise:

Julie Benz – many TV viewers will recognise her from Dexter as having played Rita Bennett, I will always remember her from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, where she played Darla.
Tony Curran – played Vincent van Gogh in the Doctor Who episode “Vincent and the Doctor” (one of my favourites), the Invisible Man in the film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as a vampire in Underworld: Evolution.
Jaime Murray – recently known as recurring character HG Wells in Warehouse 13, Olivia in Ringer, and a main character in Hustle for 4 seasons.
Graham Greene – not a lot of in the sci-fi department (are we counting Twilight?, let’s not), but a 35-year career in Canada, the US, as well as England is really nothing to sneeze at.  
Fionnula Flanagan – guest starring role on three Star Treks (TNG, DS9, and Enterprise), recurring character Eloise on Lost, all part of a 45-year career in the UK, Ireland, and US. 
Mia Kirshner – in her early days recurring roles on Dracula: The Series and a guest on War of the Worlds. On the more commercial side, she had a recurring role on The Vampire Diaries as Isobel, she was a main character on The L Word and a recurring character on Season 1 of 24.
For me, Australian actor Grant Bowler (who I could recognise from Farscape, MacLeod’s Daughters, and Halifax f.p. except he was only in one episode of each and therefore don’t, but more recently, and on this side of the Pacific, had recurring roles on Lost, Ugly Betty, and True Blood) is one of the unknown quantities, as is English actor Stephanie Leonidas – a good portion of the character drama is supposed to revolve around both of these actors. From the previews, they do look like the emotional and dramatic lynchpins. This show will also likely have many Canadian components for non-starring parts, as it’s shot in Toronto, Ontario.The first such `expendable' was Peter MacNeil, inhabiting the role of Defiance's Lawkeeper.

Right – the premise of the show. The planet is Earth, but not one we would immediately recognise. The timeline loosely works as:
2013 First Contact by the group of aliens collectively termed the Votans (they are 7 individual species -with a mysterious 8th presumed to be extinct - but they’re all from the same galaxy) who thought the Earth was uninhabited. Really? They have the technology for interstellar travel and yet are surprised that there are already 7 billion plus humans on their destination planet? Suspending disbelief again.
Negotiations for shared settlement drag on for 10 years until a Votan ambassador is publicly assassinated, and a 7-year war (the “Pale Wars”) begins. An event called “Arkfall” puts an end to it in 2030 when the fleet of alien ships in orbit inexplicably explodes but debris from the spaceships (a.k.a. Arks) terraforms Earth into something different.

The town the action takes place in is called Defiance, but was once St Louis, Missouri, only recognisable by its iconic arch. Here is my first issue: if the terraforming added a few kilometres to the earth’s surface (which I think is the measurement they said in The Making of Defiance), how is the Gateway Arch (.192 km) still so prominent?

Benz and Kirshner are sisters Amanda and Kenya Rosewater. Amanda is the mayor of Defiance, Kenya runs the local bar, gambling establishment / brothel. Curran and Murray are a husband and wife of the Castithan race (the really pale folks) and Curran plays Datak Tarr, a wealthy and influential businessman and Murray is Stahma Tarr, the ‘power behind the throne’, it appears. Greene is Rafe McCawley who is the town’s wealthiest man, owns the local mine, and probably employs most of the town. Flanagan is Nicky Riordon, former Defiance mayor and somewhat of a mentor to Amanda.  Bowler and Leonidas play newcomers to the town, he is a human called Joshua Nolan with a USMC background and she is Irisa, his non-human adopted daughter of the Irathient race.

The story begins with Nolan and Irisa driving along a fake landscape on both sides of the vehicle singing along to Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash’s Jackson, a song where the sentiments by the two singers mimics what recently transpired bringing them into this vehicle driving across the arid countryside (Nolan, it appears, is a bit of womanizer, was found with a married woman and they needed to get out of the town they were staying in). Ah, fake driving. Happily, the rest of the landscape looks okay. Nolan and Irisa are following some Arkfall debris to its crash site in search of a payday. Irisa’s voiceover introduction says she was “Born into the world that came after, after the Arkfalls began” – as the episode progresses, the audience finds out the present time is 15 years later. In due course, we are also told Nolan found her in Denver as a war orphan and raised her as his own – but it raises a few questions: She can clearly write in a language that doesn’t resemble any Earth language (she keeps a diary of sorts) and how old was she when Nolan found her. How old is this decidedly comely alien now? 

Within a few TV minutes, they run into trouble with some baddies who are of the same race as Irisa and show themselves as an efficient fighting unit in getting away. There’s further jeopardy very quickly when Irisa is revealed to be injured and Nolan carries her through the forest, with large nasty carnivorous critters nearby. He shows himself her protector (and hides a dodecahedron he took from the Arkfall debris with an estimated worth of 3 million in Earth Republic currency) when the critters attack until he runs out of ammo, but luckily some ranger-types from Defiance happen upon them, take out the critters and help them out.

Defiance has an electromagnetic border (a stasis net) around it and by the first commercial break they enter it. It’s some kind of memorial day and the mayor (on the job for only three weeks) is giving a speech that has some good info for viewers. The “Pale Wars” ended 15 years ago this day. Datak Tarr and Rafe McCawley are the chief benefactors behind a commemorative statue and hate each other. Defiance appears to be independent from the machinations of an Earth Republic  (E-Rep). There’s a Romeo & Juliet story between the Tarrs’ son Alak and McCawley’s daughter Christie. Nolan has a ‘command performance’ with the mayor who wants to suss him out and it doesn’t go incredibly well, but she introduces the Need /Want as a change of scene – this is where we have Romeo fight with one of Juliet’s brothers, who is very obviously racist and has mysterious appointments. Irisa is discharged from the hospital, where another alien race has been visually introduced (Indogene) and the pair head over to the Need/Want where we meet the Mayor’s sister (though we don’t yet officially know that) who appears to be more than just a barkeeper; madam (taking her pick of the clientele) would definitely also be in the ballpark. Nolan and Irisa get a tip from her that there is quick money to be made in the Hollows (Datak Tarr’s domain, where he actually presides) which is a kind of Fight Club for all species. Nolan volunteers himself as a fighter and we meet another species a “Bio Man” (blue, alien looking, not-responsive to punches aimed at the genitals, but with a convenient off-switch) who Nolan manages to take out after getting tossed around a bit. Datak takes most of his earnings/ winnings after he tells Nolan he thought deactivating his opponent was a ‘low blow’.

A wookie looking alien (a Sensoth) walking his dog finds the body of ‘Juliet’s’ aggressive brother Luke, when they take the news to his father, the other brother, Quentin, confesses that Alak had had a fight with him and had uttered death threats. Rafe arrives at the Need/Want with his posse of heavies wanting to kill Alak. Nolan, having ‘finished’ with Kenya upstairs sees a bit of the situation developing and tries to give the young Castithan an alibi by suggesting they’d been playing cards all night. The situation escalates when Christie arrives with the Lawkeeper who gives Alak his real alibi – they were together all night – which really doesn’t defuse the father’s anger any, just redirects it. In the short gunfight and knife fight (thanks to Irisa), the Lawkeeper is shot by one of Rafe’s goons. Datak arrives only to have a hissy fit, but serves to provide a strategic opener for Nolan to become the tracker for Luke’s actual killer (for a price), but he has to leave Irisa with the Lawkeeper’s deputy as security. Scene change to the Tarrs having an intimate series of moments in a big ole bathtub. Datak has already accused her ‘handling him’ earlier in the episode and here she shows her Lady Mac-ness. She insinuates that if Alak were to marry Christie, she’d be family. If something were to happen to her father and her brother in the danger of the mines they work in, the Tarrs would be honour bound to help her in her time of need. Ka-ching!

Irisa and the Lawkeeper’s deputy have a talk after they establish that Irisa doesn’t have the best conversational skills. They do have something in common – they were each saved by the older person they look up to. Lawkeeper Clancy had ‘seen something’ in the deputy when it looked like he might go off the rails a bit. Irisa says Nolan saved her by doing something she couldn’t: kill her parents. We might not have seen the end of that storyline.

Tracking scene – Nolan shows his skills despite Rafe’s ‘peanut gallery’ comments and comes up with a viable theory that mayor Amanda can provide a suspect for: her assistant Ben. Cut to Ben, killing his way into the control room of the stasis net with the same weapon he killed Luke with (Cold Fire gun) where he leaves a hi-tech looking little bomb. Conundrum – Nolan says when he finds alien blood at the scene of Luke’s death that it belongs to an Indogene, but a few minutes later when they catch up with Ben, Nolan says there’s only one race that uses that particular weapon and it isn’t Indogene. Dum-da-da-dum! He tries to interrogate Ben who’s been shot by Rafe. All Ben had said on the phone on the ride over is that the town is finished, all there is left to do is run. The Spirit Riders (Irathient raiders Nolan and Irisha have that 1st skirmish with at the top of the episode) or whatever’s killing them off one by one using a Cold Fire gun (we’ve already seen how it works during Nolan’s tracking demo, the audience gets a flashback of how Luke’s death went down). Ben says there’ll be an attack right after dark. Then, the bomb goes off, the stasis net goes down, distracting Nolan, Rafe, Amanda, and others and by the time they pay attention to Ben again, he’s dead. Nolan says it’s the Volge coming, he’d fought them before  – and then we see them on a bridge clanking towards “St Louis”. Their gait reminds me of ‘toasters’, the metal-looking Cylons from BSG but from the ‘aerial’ shot, they may be a lot more massive, like the ‘mechs’ from Falling Skies.

Defiance evacuates. Kenya offers Nolan a half-price discount for one final visit on her way to give Amanda a pep-talk. This is when Nolan gets a bit of info he didn’t have before: Kenya and Amanda are sisters. When she addresses the assembled town, there are shouts for ‘the real mayor, Mayor Nikki’ – and then there’s the predictable rousing speech including singling out people in the crowd one-by-one, detailing their hardships, and inciting town pride and solidarity between the races. Then the predictable “McCawley stands with you” and “the House of Tarr stands with you” and cheers and yay. Nolan listens from the sidelines but it doesn’t sway him. He and Irisa continue to pack and make ready to leave...and his conscience tugs at him when a cluster of children is shepherded across his path. At the site where he hid the dodecahedron (a Terra Sphere) he and Irisa have an argument of how to proceed. She drives off. He returns to Defiance to help, offering the sphere as a weapon. The doctor primes it, Nolan and Amanda arm the town. They are positioned along a mountainside and the aim is to lure the Volge into a pass where they will be destroyed once the sphere goes off. Drama: tense faces on the characters we have come to know and the silent clunking of the Volge towards a defenceless Defiance. Shooting. Volge falling down heights. Amanda is hit! Countdown on the sphere and the camera keeps flipping back to the Indogene doctor doing some pointy gestures implying she’s still working on priming the sphere.

In the middle of the battle, a group of motorcycles appear: it’s Irisa who’s recruited the Spirit Riders. Not a lot can happen because one of the Volge knocks her off and just before one of the Volge is about to Cold Fire her out of existence, it’s destroyed from behind. Not by Nolan, but by the former Lawkeeper’s deputy. Boom! A pale-neon blue energy pulse from the Terra Sphere annihilates the Volge. Beat. Cheers from the survivors. Brief touching scene between Nolan and Irisa, who figured the Spirit Riders hated the Volge more than the people of Defiance (in other words, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”), fake tense pause, they hug. All is well-ish.  

Field hospital scene. Amanda wants to find out who’s behind the attack. And she offers Nolan the position of Lawkeeper.

Betrothal scene: Romeo puts a big honking rock on his Juliet’s finger in the hokey bright sunshine in a hokey meadow in full cheesy bloom. Over on the sidelines, a little bit in the shadows (ding, ding, ding), the Tarrs watch and remind each other that patience will be needed if they want to get rid of Rafe McCawley. They are intent on playing a long game. Rafe has shown himself as much of a hothead thus far, so we have no idea what his idea of strategy entails, if he has one.

Closing Irisa voiceover as we see images of the town with business as usual, a glimpse of Rafe kneeling at his son’s grave site, and Nolan holding the Lawkeeper badge deep in thought before he turns to walk below the arch when the camera pans out and dramatic music begins to swell.

One would think it’s the end, but the plot doth thicken: camera continues the pan and arrives at an old TTC subway car (I recognise the scratched-off logo anywhere). Inside, the audience finds out the answer to Amanda’s question of who’s behind the attack on Defiance: Mayor Nikki (purportedly trying to save the world, even if its inhabitants resist kicking and screaming) having a chat with her oddly-bespectacled accomplice, a Mister Birch. But there’s another plotline opening – Luke McCawley knew where a key to something was and now that he’s dead, Mister Birch doesn’t know what to do next. The ex-mayor reassures him. 

In conclusion, everyone, including every single alien, sounds American (well, British accents as the ‘other’ only goes so far and is rather cliché these days). There is one alien language so far that Indogenes, Irathient, and Castithan all speak. Like in Firefly, some elements of that language have crossed over into English. A LOT of groundwork has been laid and the audience is in the know about one thing that the residents of Defiance are not, and they in turn are in possession of plenty of information the audience (yet) isn’t. It’s got some good potential, there are enough potential storylines to see this show through a few seasons already, if they can capture and keep an audience. Keeping the cheese factor under control might become a major factor. We want to be kept in suspense and we generally like following breadcrumbs (how long did Lost go on for?) – but only to a point. I get annoyed if I feel like I’m being taken for a proverbial ride and by inane dialogue, and yes, tacky, cheesy, predictable tropes. I also don’t react well to music cues insistently trying to tell me how I’m supposed to feel and for whom. Defiance has potential in those directions as well. I hope they continue to advance the story and leave the cheese on the craft services table, right by the veggie tray. 

Photo from www.digitaltrends.com. Background info on species and their spelling would've been impossible had it not been for the extensive Wikipedia entry. For all the parts I don't sound like a nutter, I credit Wiki.

The Airborne Toxic Event - The Vogue - April 9, 2013

This review was written for and published by Concert Addicts here. I've corrected some of my typos in this post. Check out the photos one of my colleagues, Pavel Boiko, took of the show, including the action shot below, here.

The Airborne Toxic Event (or TATE) – I liked this 5-piece band based in Los Angeles before I saw them live for the first time on Tuesday, April 9 at the Vogue Theatre, thanks to the wonderful singles they released over the years since the band first appeared on my radar around 2008 (thank you, Sometime Around Midnight). It’s different when you’re listening to the radio or have the CD on in the background – it’s not ‘active listening’ by any stretch, but in a live situation, you pay much more attention to musicianship and lyrics and all that other good stuff that makes a live performance truly come alive. I found tonight to be illuminating.

All At Once got the show started amidst audience cheers with an atmospheric beginning that crescendos and builds to a full-voiced (everyone but lead guitar has a microphone), room-filling, audience encouraged to clap along, sequence of climaxes. Just when you think you’re at the apex of one, they up the ante giving this song a proper rock vibe even with a viola. Stylistically, I would put them as a blend of Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon, with a lead guitarist who has studied his U2. For The Secret Anna Bulbrook exchanges her viola for the keyboard. Gasoline is a fast paced song (in 2 2 time perhaps?) and fun to watch – for the bridge it looks like singer/rhythm guitarist Mikel Jollett and lead guitarist Steven Chen are playing ‘guitar wars’ while Bulbrook and bassist Noah Harmon (who looks like he’d be equally at home in a punk band) are also duelling it out. The chord progression in the chorus reminds of another song that I can’t put my finger on, but it sounds very familiar. I’m glad Concert Addicts photographer Pavel Boiko got a few shots of the ‘drum huddle’ Harmon, Jollett, and drummer Daren Taylor (visiting him on his pedestal appears to be mandatory – everyone does it at some point) that was such an enjoyable feature of Does This Mean You’re Moving On? (I also enjoyed the bouncy characteristics of the guitar parts). Speaking of bouncy, even parenthetically, if you ever wondered if it were possible to ‘rock out’ whilst playing mandolin, the answer is yes, thanks to Harmon in the song which followed, True Love.

As they go through their setlist, I get a sense of the efficiency of this band. There’s not a lot of talking between songs. For the most part one song ends, there’s a pause of about a second or so (primarily for instrument switching, otherwise I doubt there’d be one), and then it’s off to the next one, in this case Changing. The transitions are almost seamless. For part of this song, all of the instruments are scaled back – I think it was one guitar, vocals, and drums – and the audience was invited to clap along to the syncopated rhythm during the bridge. Something New was the next song and the audience members on the ground floor of the Vogue clearly looked like they got their hopes up when Harmon produced a guitar pick and strummed his bass guitar to start the song. As it continued, it sounded especially guitar heavy in contrast to what the rest of the instruments (including vocals) were doing.

Jollett then takes a few moments to reminisce about the band’s first trip to Canada, which coincidentally wasn’t that far away from Vancouver: Pemberton Music Festival had the honour and Jollett laughs when he shares “we were new, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing, and really drunk”. Apparently they also blew many months’ worth of per diems to arrive in Pemberton by helicopter. I’m sure ‘fun was had by all’, as the cliché goes. Certainly memorable for this and the next song was from those days The Girls in Their Summer Dresses. If it hadn’t become crystal clear by this point, lyrically Jollett is a gifted storyteller. He also has a versatile vocal range that serves to punctuate the emotive elements in his lyrics. And when they’re not stories, the lyrics are often truly quite poetic (Exhibit A: All at Once). Moreover, that voice: resonant, nice timbre, a hint of a rasp – and excellent phrasing. If it were just him on the guitar singing in the corner of a coffee shop, you wouldn’t get any conversing done. All eyes and ears would be on him. Aesthetically, there’s also a hint that he could pass for a distant relation of Damian Lewis. Female listeners (maybe some males, too) might even dissolve into puddles.

For Half of Something Else, Bulbrook was back on viola whilst Chen took a turn at the keyboard. Lots of applause when this lovely song concluded. For Numb, TATE turned the ‘stadium sound’ back on. They are more than capable at it and can ‘bring it’. When the lights were completely dimmed after the song was done, it was the perfect excuse for the audience to continue their loud cheering. I really enjoyed Safe. Chen was back on guitar and Bulbrook stayed on viola and had lively instrumentation as an undercurrent to the even and steady vocal part, really creating some drive and lovely tension. This song had a fabulous build-up that you think might be self-sustaining again which then levels out to an atmospheric ending with just guitar and Jollett’s voice. Gorgeous.

A little bit of a disclaimer from Jollett as he takes a stance behind the keyboard saying he can’t really play piano. Liar. He can. Bulbrook on viola for this one: Wishing Well’. There were slight problems with the sound, something needed adjusting, as there was feedback from somewhere, but not distractingly so. The crowd downstairs didn’t care – lots of happy jumping from the first several rows! Timeless was akin to perfect, even with a guitar heavy bridge. It was plaintive, emotive, powerful vocally, Harmon with a short bow on the double bass was lovely, and a couple of people even tried holding real lighters up. The audience compromised with raised arms swaying back and forth, with nary a blue-lit mobile in sight. Bliss. That blissful state ended quickly with the first notes of the next song as screams and cheers erupted that remained fairly constant through the duration of Sometime Around Midnight’. Harmon stays on double bass for the introduction, moving to the more portable (and electric) version right after. Again, this song in a live environment was a little guitar heavy, which is super and appropriate for the bridge, but not so much when they’re almost overpowering the vocals atop the story being told. The audience downstairs is the most active I’ve seen them so far. This song also received the loudest applause of any song thus far (time check: 10:05 pm, the band have been on-stage for a full hour).

If ever a song by TATE had a built-in show-ender component, it’s All I Ever Wanted. Live, it has the full stadium sound and a sense that you’re gearing up for the end of the night with a perfectly graduated high-energy wind-down that just takes you to a place of cheers and applause and whatever else you can think of to audibly express your appreciation. The audience does so for a full 90 seconds (-ish, I didn’t time it with a stopwatch) before the band is coaxed back for an encore. The first offering is The Storm and has a nice understated beginning and end. For The Graveyard Near the House Jollett was accompanied by the downstairs crowd singing along and Bulbrook’s almost ethereal backing vocals during the chorus. It also featured the return of Harmon on double bass. The layering and interweaving of instruments was strikingly lovely. Happiness is Overrated saw a bit more energy, Jollett just lets the raspy-edge of his voice rip (how is his voice still holding up so well?), the downstairs crowd sang along, the audience as a whole was taught a line to repeat (“I’m sorry, I just lost my head”) and there was good cooperation upstairs and down, also with clapping in the middle of the song. There were loud, and I mean very loud, cheers and applause afterwards.

Everyone knows it’s nearing the end of the night and Missy is done as a medley/interspersal with Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, maybe ‘American Girl’ by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in-between (TATE has done it before and it fits thematically and rhythmically, but I’m really not certain), Springsteen’s I’m on Fire and then back to Ring of Fire except now it’s more of a rock ‘n’ roll version. I think Bulbrook even does a little of what Maritimers call ‘dirty bowing’ – it’s a particular sound effect on violin (listen to some vintage Natalie MacMaster and you’ll know what I mean and then translate it to viola) and with the pinky on your bow-hand down it belies any classical training. The lukewarm / mildly enthusiastic audience members in the mezzanine gave a standing ovation at the very end, downstairs didn’t need to, all the seats had been removed and it was standing room only. Whilst everyone was still cheering band members shook the outstretched hands of people in the first couple of rows (there’s only so far an arm can reach after all) and one of the Canadian members of the TATE crew (Jollett had said earlier in the show that there were a few Canadians on tour with them who were happy to be home again) came out of the wings bearing a Canada flag and there was more applause for him as he tore across the stage a few times. And that was it: 90 minutes of wonderful sonic barrage.

Currently on tour supporting their third studio album Such Hot Blood with a release date of April 30, 2013, The Airborne Toxic Event bring a lot of vim and vigour (not to mention electricity) to their live shows and are consistent performers from beginning to the over-too-soon end.

Oh, yes, there was an opener. From Los Angeles, we got to hear Nightmare Air who played music on the heavier side of rock for half an hour. They are a trio (Swaan on bass, Jimmy on drums (who does a more than decent job), Dave on guitar; both Swaan and Dave sing. She channels The Joy Formidable; he channels Ozzy Osbourne. She’s Cousin It with long legs and a micro mini; he’s a bespectacled Muppet, reminding me of Rowlf. She has the stage presence of a dishcloth looking everywhere but at the audience except when she’s singing, Dave seems friendly enough but drops a lot of F-bombs when talking to the audience and that’s pretty much the only time you can understand what he’s saying because when he’s singing, all you can comprehend are the vowel sounds. Depending on the quality of the lyrics, I would probably have forgone the F-bombs for lyrics, but alas that was not to be. Altogether unremarkable and even some members of what I am presuming is this band’s target demographic (university age young men) with whom I spoke afterwards were less than impressed.

Setlist:
    All At Once
    The Secret
    Gasoline
    Does This Mean You’re Moving On?
    True Love’
    Changing
    Something New
    The Girls in Their Summer Dresses
    Half of Something Else
    Numb
    Safe
    Wishing Well
    Timeless
    Sometime Around Midnight
    All I Ever Wanted
Encore:
    The Storm
    The Graveyard Near The House
    Happiness is Overrated
    Missy
(also excerpts from Ring of Fire, I’m On Fire and another song)

OMD - The Commodore Ballroom - April 5, 2013

This review was written for and published by Concert Addicts here. I've corrected some of my typos in this post. Check out the photos my colleague Daniel Young took of the show, including the action shot below, here
 
I would’ve been curious to see a review by a Concert Addict who didn’t have much prior knowledge of OMD’s extensive catalogue (not that I’m anything but a casual fan, but they are the reason I can spell manoeuvres - the OEU is the key, people). I wonder what it would have sounded like to new ears – these technically middle-aged ears very much liked what they heard. The first and only time I had seen OMD perform before was at Toronto’s old Exhibition Stadium when they were the support act for Depeche Mode who were touring Violator at the time. I think it was 1988 or 89, late summerish – and my friend Nicole and I had saved up our money from our crappy after-school jobs to buy our seats in the very last row of the stands.* We couldn’t have been further back, there was only a wall of concrete behind us. Everyone we saw on stage was the size of a thimble and it was fantastic. Fast forward a couple of *cough* decades *cough* and I’m in Vancouver’s legendary Commodore Ballroom behind the lighting techs, so 40 odd feet away from the stage on assignment for Concert Addicts. As it turns out, Vancouver kicked off OMD’s new tour – their new CD called English Electric doesn’t officially drop until this coming Tuesday, so this was special – both to them and to the audience.

Because the CD is so new, I had to rely on setlist.fm for some song titles. According to it, the first ‘song’ was Decimal followed by Please Remain Silent. I don’t know what to make of them as they’re sound bites. I thought I would be hearing music but it sounds experimental, with robot-like voices or recorded messages of the kind you get when you reach a phone number that’s out of service. I think the band like to call them ‘soundscapes’. The first actual song recognisable as such is Metroland. The crowd is responsive but seems to be waiting for a hit or two. Andy McCluskey gets them clapping. Sorted. Oh, hey, Malcolm Holmes: wicked drum kit you have there. Nice resonance and power behind it. After this song was done McCluskey relieves the audience with a jovial “Don’t worry, they’re not all new” before he straps on his bass guitar. Messages is the song, and it sounds slightly updated and the audience is happy. The next song also comes with a disclaimer “This is new. Don’t Worry. Just (expletive) dance.” Sounds alright. McCluskey asks the assembled masses if they remember an album from 30 years ago called Dazzle Ships – many apparently do. The song they chose from it starts out with robot sounds and is Radio Waves. As an intro to History of Modern Part 1, McCluskey announces he has good news and bad news: “good news: the sh—bass playing has stopped, the bad news is the sh—dancing really starts”. The audience doesn’t mind, especially as he makes an effort to make hand contact with a number of people in the front rows. He also plays to the house – trying to draw as many people in as he can. Seems to be fond of a crucifixion pose, which is, interesting. A little banter between McCluskey and Paul Humphreys as it’s the latter’s turn to be centre stage for a song. McCluskey assures him it’s safe for Paul to sing and is himself quite secure at one of the Roland XII keyboards as ‘he only has 3 notes to play’. It’s (Forever) Live and Die and it sounds a bit like the vocals on Humphreys are a smidge too high. What he’s singing is noticeably louder than what the 2 keyboards and the wicked drum kit are doing. Still as lovely a song as ever, though. To introduce the next song, McCluskey says it’s one people love to hate or hate to love. He credits it with ‘ruining their career’ as they ‘used to be quite cool once’. What else could it be but If You Leave? For the bridge, Martin Cooper pulls out the saxophone and as the song is gearing up towards the end the audience start to get louder and more persistent with their clapping. They sustain it after it ends and it is even louder once the cheers and general applause come in.

McCluskey wasn’t kidding about the dancing: he’s at times a bit of a flailer and other times like a fish flopping. Seriously. Humphreys has the easier job even though he’s right up in the front as well, but safely behind his instrument. Even for the next one when it’s his turn again at the microphone. McCluskey is back on bass guitar and introduces it as a song from 1981 (my God, is it ever). It’s the short and plaintive Souvenir and this one is perfectly balanced for him. It’s rather perfect all around, I’d say. Time for a song or two from the new record and the first is called Night Cafe. It’s certainly in keeping with their traditional synth-pop style, and as McCluskey says at its conclusion “Nothing to worry about, eh? New stuff is (expletive) good.” Right, the next two surprised me a little – I didn’t know they had such a Joan of Arc fixation. The next song was actually called Joan of Arc (before my time) and featured McCluskey in his full notes-stuck-in-the-throat glory. It’s very distinctive – not my favourite way of singing, as it’s a little like gargling. Then was Maid of Orleans in all its keyboard glory. I was surprised I recognised it as quickly (first chords). It was never my favourite but familiar nonetheless. Sustained applause and cheers at its end, louder than before I think. Must’ve been other people’s favourite. McCluskey is elated and says “no wonder we wanted to start the tour in Vancouver”. As information about the song to follow, he says they wrote it when the probe Voyager 1 passed Jupiter (according to Wikipedia, that was in 1979) but is on the new release: Our System. Looking a little out of breath, McCluskey talks about robots for the next introduction. Something about when your wife is a robot / your robot is a wife (Atomic Ranch). The audience was invited to discuss, but not at the expense of Kissing the Machine. It featured sweeping keyboard parts which I kind of liked. After it’s done McCluskey takes a look at the setlist and exclaims “Oh my God, it’s all the fast ones now. Get me some oxygen and a hospital bed.” I guess So In Love can be viewed as a fast song, he’s playing to the crowd again, focussing on making contact with as many hands of audience members on the stage left side. Another saxophone solo for Cooper. As the end of the song is just repeats of the chorus, it could’ve gone longer, the audience would certainly have followed where the band led. As it was, McCluskey asked to be ‘allowed to save your souls’ ahead of Sister Marie Says. Again with the anthemic keyboard part. The crowd eats it up while McCluskey agitates for participation (we’re nearing the end, I’d say) – he even gets a few people in the mezzanine clapping. Locomotion is the epitome of synthesised sound – Cooper `plays’ trumpet on his keyboard and Humphreys `plays’ steel drum on his. Sailing on the Seven Seas came next and it sounds positively country – vocally, rhythmically, the formula is there – except where you’d hear a steel guitar solo, Cooper takes the solo on keyboard (not with synthesised steel guitar, mind, it’s ‘saxophone’). Again the applause and cheers lingered until well after the song was done. Another “we knew there was a reason to start the tour here” with a note of appreciative amazement. For Enola Gay, McCluskey was back on bass and there’s a full-on multi-colour light show to take everyone through the song with high energy. The song ends with a recorded loop so all members of the band take their turn to be acknowledged by the still enthusiastic audience with profuse thanks from both McCluskey and Humphreys as they leave the stage.

At this point, it’s 5 minutes before midnight and the audience was not leaving. No. Uh-uh. The floor is bouncing – there are so many people stomping their feet, in addition to cheers, whistles, applause. OMD return in under a minute and McCluskey thanks everyone again for being an amazing audience. He also relates how walking off-stage he remarked something to Humphreys along the lines of “why the hell am I doing this? I’m 53 years old” to which Humphreys was said to have replied with “This is why”, meaning the `demands’ for an encore by the crowd. This was really a `mutual appreciation society’ moment which became suffused with church organ sounds from the keyboard signalling the beginning of Walking on the Milky Way (from 1996, McCluskey says) with some nice asked-for (and received) assistance from the audience for the “hey hey” parts. The song I’ve always called “mine” (for obvious reasons I think: look at my name, now look at its name) Secret is the next song of the encore. McCluskey is on the bass guitar again and Humphreys takes the lead on vocals. Lingering and loud applause follows this song as well. What a love-in all around and everyone is soaking it up. The final song is introduced as an actual song written in 1976 (unlike one that was previously introduced as such, which apparently, was incorrect. Who knew?). The final song was Electricity and I was rather impressed by how much energy everyone on stage and in the audience still had at this late stage of the evening. It was kind of awesome.

What seemed like final goodbyes were said at about 10 past midnight. There’s still so much stomping, and hooting (and hollering), and whistling, and overall applause, and the stage lights are still on, so there’s hope. After a few minutes, the Commodore Ballroom staff maybe got the message that nothing further was coming, so the ‘80s dance party mix continued with The Cure’s Close to You (followed closely by Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears. The dance floor has only emptied slightly. There were plenty of people from their 20s right up to mid-50s, I’d say, wanting to make a night of it.

As much as the Commodore was trying to channel the ‘80s for the sold-out crowd (playing the likes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Billy Idol, Depeche Mode, Human League, New Order, all of which I enjoyed), this is definitely NOT a nostalgia tour. OMD are still very much an active band – they are producing new music and are promoting a new rather techno-sounding album via this tour. There really was something for everyone – old fans, new fans, casual fans, not-yet fans – at this show and I think everyone there got SOMETHING out of the evening.

As for me, I’m good. I’m realising I’m not that much of a nostalgia person – I don’t need to relive the `good old days’, I’m peachy-keen with the present and will be fine with what the future holds musically. With the welcome and response OMD got from this crowd in Vancouver, they’ll set off on their tour with warm and fuzzies in their hearts. They can still entertain an audience, and they certainly entertained me, and I wish them well with what they want to achieve artistically. I just do not see myself following where they lead.

N.B.> For the sake of order, for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t see the opener. I would have liked to have seen Diamond Rings’ full set, but alas, I spent his final song looking for a perch, just like I’d likely spent the majority of his set looking for parking.

* if Depeche Mode decide to bring their current Delta Machine tour to Vancouver (or indeed anywhere west of Toronto) and I officially review it, you might be seeing a version of this preamble again.

Setlist:
    Decimal
    Please Remain Seated
    Metroland
    Messages
    Dresden
    Radio Waves
    History of Modern (Part 1)
    (Forever) Live and Die
    If You Leave
    Souvenir
    Night Café
    Joan of Arc
    Maid of Orleans
    Our System
    Atomic Ranch
    Kissing the Machine
    So In Love
    Sister Marie Says
    Locomotion
    Sailing on the Seven Seas
    Enola Gay
Encore:
    Walking on the Milky Way
    Secret
    Electricity

Saturday 13 April 2013

The English Beat - The Venue - April 2, 2013

This review was first published by Concert Addicts here at this link. No photos though, we did not have a photographer at this show.

With The Specials just having played a few nights prior, it’s difficult not to make comparisons between that band and The English Beat. What Terry lacks in on-stage personability, Dave Wakeling more than makes up for. Looking more like a Beach Boy in his Lacoste golf shirt (or was it polo?) than one of the icons of Britain’s 2-tone ska revival of decades past, Wakeling greeted the crowd at the Venue on Tuesday, April 2 with a cheeky “I rescheduled this show so you could all go to The Specials”. That’s exactly what happened in my case, so I was grateful. That was a good show. So was this one.

So there’s no confusion – this is not the same band that tore up European and UK charts in the 1980s; of the 6 performers on-stage, it’s `just’ Wakeling with a different, California-based, contingent of musicians. By quarter to nine there were only about 70 people in the venue, a lone fan pacing the deserted dance floor in a red shirt and a fedora sitting tightly on his head. He wandered the length and breadth of the dance floor, staying clear of the swirling light designs being projected onto it, but he eventually got over it. Idle observations as one waits for something to happen. Surveying the crowd then and later, the demographics are definitely skewed towards 40 and upwards, but there are quite a number of younger people here. By the time the show began at just after 9:30 pm, there were easily over 200 people in the house (the mezzanine was closed).

After brief pleasantries in the direction of the audience, the band started with Rough Rider and continued with Tears of a Clown (of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles fame). Not a person on the dance floor isn’t dancing, even the 70-year-old bearded geezer beside me is. Dave Wakeling is definitely a showman, he’s very comfortable doing the in-between chat and introduces every song individually. Twist and Crawl is definitely a higher energy version and space on the dance floor is getting tighter as the people get more active. I’d say they were definitely warmed up now. 2-Tone Tony improvises a riff on who remembers the ‘80s (it appears many do) and I’ll Take You There smacks of something a little older than that with its elements of funk (the Staple Singers hat a hit with it in the very early ‘70s and this technically was a hit for General Public, Wakeling’s first post The Beat-band ).

What I’m really liking about this show is that these songs are from an era in which the average song length was around 3 ½ minutes – I get the impression that this evening the song length averages 5 minutes or so – at 10 past 10 pm, we were only on the 6th song and there isn’t a lot of chit-chat and banter between songs! Click Click had a very nice quick pace to it – the audience responded with air-punches with the music. Save It For Later was greeted with lots of `whoooos’ from the audience. They were in turn invited to clap along but especially to jump. It has a lot more pep and energy live than on the standard recording. There was lots of applause when it ended. Two Swords was probably one of the shorter songs of the night. Doors of Your Heart was a slow and steady number, showing its reggae roots. Best Friend was really fun for the audience to dance to and an upbeat / high energy offering. Sole Salvation was more of a `proper’ singing number for Wakeling. And doubling on vocals with 2-Tone Tony easily masks any imperfections. For this style of music, having a horn section or similar is crucial – it’s where the melodic and emphatic interest comes from. For this band, they went with a reed instrument – and the saxophone is key to providing variety and movement atop the rhythm-centric focus the rest of the band has outside of vocals. For Never You Done That, the melodic variety comes from the keyboard while saxophonist takes a well deserved break by playing tambourine and singing back-up vocals. This song does come complete with the whistle ending from Wakeling. For General Public’s biggest hit Tenderness there were was much happy dancing and lots of `woooos' intermittently. 2-Tone Tony handled Ranking Roger’s part for the reggae-sounding Ranking Full Stop admirably, as he has done all evening. Other than vocals and occasionally playing tambourine, he really doesn’t have a lot to DO per se. I would imagine it could sometimes be a bit difficult to keep yourself engaged by what’s going on whilst waiting for your next vocal cue…which might not happen for a song or two as you just move along to the rhythm. I’d likely be bored out of my skull. The song continued without a break right into Mirror in the Bathroom. I thought there would be more of a reaction from the audience when that first note of the saxophone was played, but not really. They were no more or less appreciative than they had been all evening. At the end (about 20 past 11 pm) the band soaked up the applause and Wakeling thanked everyone for coming. The applause continued after they left for a good 3-4 minutes as the crowd hoped for more. There was no encore coming. When the house lights came on and technicians began getting cases out and generally getting tear-down underway, the applause petered out. People didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to leave despite the fact that it was a weeknight. Maybe they just wanted the evening to last a bit longer.

The invariable comparison: If I'm completely honest, of the two nights, I think I preferred The Specials. They still have chips on their shoulders. For Wakeling, he definitely enjoys what he does and all, but he's got nothing to prove. I got the impression The Specials still think they do.

Setlist:Rough Rider
Tears of a Clown
Hands Off She’s Mine
Twist and Crawl
I’ll Take You There
I Confess
Click Click
Save It For Later
Two Swords
Too Nice To Talk To
Doors of Your Heart
Whine & Grine / Stand Down Margaret
Best Friend
Sole Salvation
Never You Done That
Tenderness
Ranking Full Stop
Mirror in the Bathroom


Photo from: http://www.songkick.com/artists/2955121-english-beat

Friday 12 April 2013

The Specials - Commodore Ballroom - March 29, 2013

This review was first published by Concert Addicts here at this link. No photos though, we did not have a photographer at this show. 

The ‘rude boys’, ‘rude girls’, mods, etc. proudly wore their get-ups inspired by yesteryear to the 1st of 2 nights in Vancouver The Specials were performing. This first night was at The Commodore Ballroom and it was very well attended. As I was picking up my ticket, door sales closed – the Ballroom had officially reached capacity.

San Diego-based Little Hurricane were the opener and they are a duo: female drummer and male guitarist who also sing. Sound-wise, I would peg them in the neighbourhood of White Stripes meets Black Keys, with a bit of Band of Skulls thrown in for good measure. In other words: southern US blues-style with grounded rock (easy on the roll) devices. This was their first time in Vancouver, first time in Canada, period. I think they liked it; they played to an almost full house who responded positively to their brand of music. For one song, the guitarist had placed another guitar on a keyboard behind him and played it a lot like an ironing board for parts of a couple of songs. A song called “Crocodile Tears” concluded their 30+ minute set and featured a back and forth conversation between the drummer and guitarist lyrically and the use of the ‘ironing board’. Looks a bit weird, sounds a lot good.

The rarely used curtain closes a few minutes before 10:30 pm. The Commodore is full – there were a couple of “standing room only” spots upstairs by the back wall of the mezzanine bar, but that is really about it – it’s tight. For those old enough to remember, attempts at Docs (remember cherry Docs?), an occasional trilby or pork pie, a generally black & white wardrobe were made. The Specials even helped out with a couple of signature T-shirts for sale at the merchandise booth. They haven’t lasted 30 years for nothing (albeit, with a hiatus in-between) – I tried, but couldn’t for the life of me remember how to do a half-Windsor. Such is life.

For a good 20 minutes the audience stared at the curtain, then, to the sounds of Enjoy Yourself over the loudspeakers, and thunderous applause, the band came on-stage. They looked slick, dare I say ‘dapper’? The first songs were Do the Dog and (Dawning of a) New Era. By Gangsters, the legendary bouncy floor of the Commodore is getting a good workout. The keyboard player, Nik Torp, is amongst the most dynamic I’ve ever seen. He’s always doing something active in addition to playing keys. Cartoon-esque on-the-spot running while not missing a note appears to be his specialty. It’s Up to You and Monkey Man followed – floor is on full bounce. Audience is full voiced for the aye-aye-aye parts and band member jackets are starting to shed their jackets. The energy is high from the stage and from the audience. One particular (portly) guy in the balcony was clapping and stomping his foot so hard I was worried we might all crash through. Good times! It was Good Friday after all, a fact not lost on frontman Terry Hall, who got a bit of a Good Friday chant going.

Hey Little Rich Girl had a nice little trombone feature as well as, if I am reading my half-light handwriting correctly, possibly a banjo. The song apparently was Amy Winehouse’s favourite Specials song and it was dedicated to her memory. The anti-racism message of Doesn’t Make it Alright was highlighted and the audience did airpunches or claps at the appropriate times. Über-cool looking drummer John Bradbury was introduced just before Concrete Jungle. More bouncy-times for the crowd, plus sing-alongs at the chorus. Keyboards were doing some syncopation here that the audience followed with clapping. At this point I’m thinking they’re really not the chattiest of bands. Rhythm guitarist Lynval Golding definitely engages more with the audience. Good tunes though because my favourite Friday Night, Saturday Morning was up. I really like the slow groove of the rhythm and it is essentially the evening’s theme. Stereotype was with trumpet. Nice, echoey, ‘stereo’ effect and it either had a long extension or a longer intro into the next song using the trombone because the band segued straight into Man from C&A. Switch here to double trumpets that fill the room. So good. It was almost hard to hear the crowd for this song, but they were a-jumping! They may have been glad for a bit of a rest with Do Nothing that featured trombone in the bridge and following. Between songs Terry has a bit of a talk with the audience acknowledging that yes, he is socially …he uses the R-word, I’ll say awkward. I’ll also say he expressed not a lot of admiration for the work of Chris Martin of Coldplay and leave it at that. Whistles and cheers erupted when the first notes of A Message to You Rudy were discernible. It is a little quicker in tempo than the original recorded version and the audience keeps step with clapping and singing the chorus. The highest number of smartphones are out for this one. The applause lingered after the song concluded and I think it was the loudest as it was all night. The introduction to Nite Klub seemed a bit circular, as if Terry may have missed a starting cue and the intro was repeated until the cue came round again. Audience didn’t care – they sang along for the majority of the song and full-on bouncing and jumping, even up in the mezzanine. When the audience sings by themselves, it sounds a bit like chants sung in football (soccer to you) stadia. Trumpet and trombone for this one. Rhythmically, I think Little Bitch is about as ‘SKA 101’ as you can get and the audience yell along for the 1-2s. Terry and mobile bandmates (as in, not the drummer or horn section) ‘play’ a little with their crew during this song – knocking mic stands over, spilling water bottles – they put them through their paces, I’d say. This is starting to feel like a finish because the band go straight into Too Much Too Young and from there through to Enjoy Yourself. This final song has full audience participation from beginning to end and then, boom, they were done.

The encore didn’t take long to begin – it was just before midnight. The lighting crew put the focus on green and the stage looked a little spooky – fittingly, the song was Ghost Town done with the full ensemble. Long trombone bridge and the entire song just goes along at that almost hypnotically lulling leisurely pace. It could’ve gone on for hours, it was easily 5 minutes long this evening. The band go off for a few minutes and within 2 minutes of clapping, shouts, and whistles are back, but for Terry (who does poke his head out every so often from the stage right curtain), as the song is Guns of Navarone which is essentially done as an instrumental and every instrument gets at least a brief solo of sorts. The final song You’re Wondering Now I swear is the theme melody of Ben Miller’s new show Death in Paradise, or is at least the inspiration of it (admittedly, The Specials covered The Skatalites, but it’s the same song, I tell you). And it was brilliant and it was the end (10 past midnight). It took what seemed like forever to leave as everyone was talking to everyone else about how much fun tonight was and the merch booth was positively slammed with custom. All in all, a really good time out. I can only imagine what the second night must’ve been like at the Vogue Theatre.

Setlist:
Do the Dog
(Dawning of a) New Era
Gangsters
It’s Up to You
Monkey Man
Rat Race
Blank Expression
Hey Little Rich Girl
Doesn’t Make it Alright
Concrete Jungle
Friday Night, Saturday Morning
Stereotype
Man at C&A
Do Nothing
A Message to You Rudy
Nite Klub
Little Bitch
Too Much Too Young
Enjoy Yourself


Encore (part 1):
Ghost Town

Encore (part 2):
The Guns of Navarone
You’re Wondering Now


Picture from http://www.straight.com/listings/music/index.php?r=music/detail&id=25859