“Dance a little bit.”
Those are not words one necessarily expects to hear at a shoegaze concert, but that’s exactly what Glixen lead vocalist Aislinn Ritchie said to the crowd at Hard Luck Bar on Friday night. And while it’s true that shoegaze might not be the first genre that comes to mind when you think dance music, Glixen did indeed get the crowd moving.
For anyone who remembers shoegaze the first time around, it’s interesting to contrast the new school with the OG shoegazers. One obvious difference is modern shoegaze’s metallic tendencies, with a lot of the younger bands indebted just as much to acts like Deftones as they are to MBV or Slowdive. One other significant difference I observed while watching Glixen and their tourmates Trauma Ray on Friday – not all that much actual gazing at their shoes.
“We missed you,” said Ritchie at one point midway through Glixen”s set, noting that this was their third time in Toronto. The crowd, in turn, were happy to have them back, while the band seemed pretty hyped up to be playing before a rather packed house. In fact, for much of their show, Ritchie was all smiles, a contrast to the band’s dense, sludgy guitar work. Definitely feeding off the crowd’s energy, Glixen put on an impressive show – the combination of crushing guitars and Ritchie’s light, ethereal vocals hit with real force.
For their part, Trauma Ray had a relatively chill and unassuming stage presence, content to bang their heads and rock out while cranking out some heavy, hazy riffs, though they did call the crowd out at one point for not quite cheering loud enough when they gave a shout out to opening acts Knifeplay and Her New Knife: “This is a sold-out show and I only heard like, 30 of y’all cheering.”
Running through most of their recently released Carnival EP as well as a few off of last year’s Chameleon, Trauma Ray inspired a fair bit of moshing over the course of their set. And moshing definitely counts as dancing.
