There’s something about dark, percussion heavy, almost industrial electronic music that seem to produce mostly mysterious bands. In the case of Swedish/Aussie group Kate Boy, most of the mystery is based around lead singer Kate Akhurst, whose face has been a mystery among men since the group first came to the forefront. My real question is..how did this band come about? Aussie fronted, yet Swedish backed. We all know that Australians love to travel and often take like six months off at a time to do the hostel tour around Europe.. Did Kate just stop over in Stockholm one day and decided to stay? Did she meet the rest of the bands in some dingy club, and over a night of alcohol committed to forming a band? What a mystery.
Some of that mystery about Kate Boy was revealed Sunday night as the band played their Toronto debut at the Wrongbar. Dressed in identical black uniforms featuring black caps and random straps, Kate Boy’s uniform reminded me of how a bunch of nerds would dress up if they thought they were going on a secret mission or something. Still, I like bands that wear uniforms, so this was a plus for me.
With their black uniforms, a dark room and only a white glow for lights, the room seemed like a perfect environment to absorb the band’s icy beats meets the Knife type of music. It’s always a bit of a stretch when a band tours on a strength of a few songs (and no albums) but my takeaways from Kate Boy are:
Kate Akhurst is already a seasoned lead – between her crazy (interpretative) dance moves and manic stage presence (switching between singing, drumming and pressing buttons on electronic things), she definitely keeps things interesting on stage. Considering they are still in stages of infancy, this bodes well for the group.
The group loves beats – at one point, the four members of the group were all banging on something. Wonder if that’s how they were when they were kids. The focus on beats and rhythm help turned the semi-packed Wrongbar into a dance party, a great feat for a Sunday night show.
For a band that only started popping up on people’s radars a month or two ago, they were sounded rather seasoned. They even played their hit single last! Northern Lights, the song that started it all, sounded great and left the fans wanting more. Not a bad debut.
