The Panic Manual

Concert Review: The Futureheads, June 10th, Mod Club

Posted on

11 Jun 2010

Ricky

Toronto – The Futureheads were in town on Thursday night to promote their new album the Chaos, and they put on an awesome live show. After the FM light hearted pop of Athlete, and the moody (but spectacular) sounds of The Antlers and The National, nothing was more refreshing then when The Futureheads, upon taking the stage shortly after 8:45, asked the crowd “Are you ready to rock?”

The crowd was indeed ready to rock. So the band complied. What happened over the next 80 minutes was a show that moved along at a blistering pace that featured songs from all the Futurehead albums. It was a great rock show and the Futureheads have one of the best on-stage presence I have seen. Instead of going through it chronologically, I’ll just recall moments in the show that I found to be entertaining.

beer

First of all, the Futureheads were drinking Steamwhistle. Barry Hyde, the lead singer, when looking at the beer, asked ‘This is a good Canadian beer, yah?” to which the crowd yelled an emphatic yes. He then proceeded to open the beer bottle WITH A WATER BOTTLE. I was like ‘wtf?’. That was impressive. Later on in the night, someone bought the band Molson beer, to which the band was like ‘Molson?’ with a tone of displeasure.

fans

It was pretty apparent that the band just likes to have fun with the crowd. It was also clear that if you were in the front, the band was going to have some fun with you. At one point, Ross (the bassist) pointed to someone in the crowd during a conversation and said something like “I’m sure this perpetual screamer over here would like it”. Haha. Shortly afterwards, they talked to another audience in the crowd and told him he “had the straightest spine known to man” and that he had “good rock posture”. These kind of jokes happened throughout the night, and I’m pretty sure most fans had a smile on their face.

rock. and. roll

The Futureheads love to rock and roll. Barry Hyde used the guitar to machine gun the crowd and their post-rock punk meets 60s harmony sound was enough to start a mini mosh pit. The band even got the crowd to do what they called the ‘bouncey bounce’ for the tune Skip to the End, which consists of the people just bouncing straight up and down, to which Ross pointed to the guy with the straight spine and insisted it wasn’t a problem for him. Other songs that rocked the show included Man Ray, Area, Decent Days and Nights and Beginning of a Twist. New songs like I can Do That, Jupiter and Heartbeat Song got good reactions as well, in particular the Heartbeat song, which was introduced as a ‘John Hughes song where you fell in love fiver minutes ago’.

Hounds of Love

As I had previously eluded to, The Hounds of Love was a great moment in Oh, and it proved itself to be true on Thursday night, as the band split the concert hall into two sides for dueling Ohs to begin the Kate Bush cover. When Ross’s side won, he was so ecstatic for the victory he talked trash to Jaff for two straight minutes. The song itself to be a nice sing-a-long and even after the show was over, Ross was still thanking his side for picking up the victory. That’s some genuine fun.

Appreciation

When the Futureheads came back for an encore, they basically said ‘Alright, this has been a great gig, so from now on, we’ll just play requests from now on’. They then proceeded to play three requests before ending the night. What a great way to end a show.

All in all, a wonderful show full of energetic upbeat music and a great time was had by all. We also discovered pints at the Mod Club was cheaper then bottles.

The Futureheads – Heartbeat Song by Fuzzy Stereo

Concert Review: Kings of Convenience, June 8, Phoenix

Posted on

11 Jun 2010

sarahw

Toronto – When the Kings of Convenience (KOC) show was cancelled in February due to Eirik’s case of the flu I was quite devasted, KOC are probably one of my favorite bands. This devastation was temporarily remedied when I saw Whitest Boy Alive at Coachella (Erlend Oye’s side project), they were very impressive to say the least which left me anticipating KOC’s June arrival even more!

KOC came out a little after 10:15 PM, it was just Erlend and Eirik with their acoustic guitars. They kicked off the set with an ultra slow jam, My Ship isn’t Pretty, the packed house literally stood there in awe of Eirik’s amazing voice – it gave me Goosebumps!

After the first song Erlend addressed the crowd to say that they play many “quiet” songs and that we need to be quiet during those but we can get rowdy during their “not so quiet” songs. He also went on to say that The Phoenix denied their request to shut down the bar (Bastards) so he politely asked the audience not to buy drinks, a strange request at a concert but I could literally hear the change jangling, the register open/close, the person in the back sneezing and at one point a phone ringing (the nerve).

The duo then played a delightful set that included Love is no Big Truth, I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From, Mrs. Cold, Boat Behind, interrupted only with hilarious banter between Erlend, Eirik and the audience. They are quite the comedic twosome, at one point Erlend was late getting to the piano for his piece and Eirik commented that he would have to bring that episode up at the next band meeting. Flight of the Conchords anyone? Hearing this in their Nordic accents made these quips even funnier.

Being such a big fan of KOC I was worried my expectations for them were too high, well, their melodic, soothing songs coupled with amazingly precise and coordinated guitar work truly do all of their albums justice.

When they neared the end of their set KOC invited the opening band, Franklin for Short, on stage and proceeded to sing two songs with them (Rule my World and I’d Rather Dance With You). The backup band added another dimension to their final songs and gave the songs a little more punch. Erlend encouraged the crowd to move closer “like at a rock concert” he also showed off the best gangly-awkward-Napoleon Dynamite-esque dance moves I’ve ever seen (I got a sneak peak at Coachella but he was on FIRE during this show). Very entertaining.

For the encore they played Little Kids and then ASKED the crowd what we wanted to hear, that has NEVER happened at any of the concerts I have attended (I’ve been to a few..). Obviously we all yelled for them to play Misread which was the perfect wrap-up to an impeccable show, they said it best in their song Homesick “Two soft voices blended in perfection…”.

Kings of Convenience – Boat Behind by eduardodv

Concert Review: The National, June 8th, Massey Hall

Posted on

9 Jun 2010

Ricky

Toronto – Welcome to part 2 of my review of Tuesday night’s show. Part 1, featuring the Antlers, can be found here

Fake Empires, Mistaken For Strangers, Bloodbuzz Ohio, Albel, Lit Up, Karen, Mr. November

These are the songs from the National I can name off the top of my head. Needless to say, I am not overly familiar with their material. However, I know a hot ticket when I see it, so when the National announced they were playing two shows at Massey Hall, I felt like I had to go. I had gotten myself acquainted with most of the bands material before the show, but like that random stranger you meet at a house party, I could only scratch the surface of what the band was about before the show.

First of all, let me tell you, Massey Hall, your basement bathroom area is a death trap during intermission. If there was a fire, everyone down there will DIE. No clue why I thought about this during that time, it’s probably the effects of aging.

Anyways, shortly after 9:20, the band took the stage to a rapturous applause. I was surprised by the size of the band, when I saw them at the Horseshoe back in the day, they were a much smaller band (and also, they still claimed to be from Cincinnati, instead of Brooklyn). Accompanying them was a horns section and a multi-instrumentalist named Padma. He played violin, piano and all sorts of stuff. I can confirm that having a horn and strings section really helps add depth and amplifies the sound. Makes songs sound more epic. I like epic.

The band started off with the track Runaway, off their new album, High Violet. The stage had some nice lighting for this song, including two shiny disco balls set on the floor that provided some trippy effect. Sadly, they never utilized the disco balls again. Matt Berninger’s baritone voice carries so well in Massey Hall. The song was quickly followed by fan favorite Mistaken For Strangers and then another new song, Anyone’s Ghost, to which he said

Matt: The following song is a new song. Wait.. so was the first one. Nevermind

I found that to be rather humourous. After the third song, the photographers had to scram (usual 3 song photo limit) and sensing that this might be a sit down show, Matt quickly went into the crowd encouraging everyone to stand up, and as usual per Massey Hall show, everyone then made a beeline for the front. On a side note, I know a few of my respected colleagues are concert photographers, but it is pretty funny watching them scurry around each other when you are far away. Just sayin. They do a good job though.

The rest of the 2 hour set consisted of the band taking much of material from their most recent albums. As a casual fan, I was impressed at how good they sounded, but some of the songs did sound kinda-samey. I guess this is what you get when the lead singers delivery is so unique. Having said that, Berninger is a great front man, he has good crowd banter, is intense when he needs to be and humourous when the moment calls for that. He can scream the hell out of the microphone as well. I think in another life, Matt Berninger could have either been a college professor or a ship captain.

Highlights for me included all the songs I knew and especially the song Abel, which featured Matt heading directly into the crowd on what must be the world’s longest microphone cord. He could have went to Frans and ordered a corn beef sandwich if he wanted, the chord was that long. He would later repeat the trick for the encore performance of Mr. November, which I had mistaken told Paul was called ‘Ms October‘. Yup, music expert here!

All in all, a great night of music at Massey Hall. My ears were ringing. I thought Massey Hall had volume control, so I didn’t bring earplugs, but let me tell you, it was definitely worth it. Go check them out tonight. They might play Lit Up.

I shazammed all the songs while at the concert to come up with this play list.

Runaway
Mistaken For Strangers
Anyone’s Ghost
Bloodbuzz Ohio
Secret Meeting
Slow Show
Squalor Victoria
Afraid Of Everyone
Little Faith
All The Wine
Available
Conversation 16
Apartment Song
The Geese of Beverly Road
Abel
Daughters Of The Soho Riots
England
Fake Empire

90-Mile Water Wall
Lemonworld
Mr. November
Terrible Love

About Today

Just kidding, I got it off setlist.fm

The National – Conversation 16 by wereofftherails

Concert Review: The Antlers, June 8th, Massey Hall

Posted on

9 Jun 2010

Ricky

Toronto – Just like a really long Quentin Tarantino movie, I’m breaking this concert review into two parts.

The other day, whilst at work in the middle of some hardcore coding (my day job), something dawned on me.. Tuesday night will be my fourth time seeing The Antlers. Have I seen any band more then four times? I then quickly switched to this site, took a look at my concert list, did some thinking, did some counting, and quickly realized – no, I have never seen a band more then 4 times in a row. I then checked my fantasy sports teams, read some random wikipedia articles, watched some 80s tv sitcom intros on youtube, made some snarky comments on people’s status updates on facebook, wrote a post on the blog and then I went back to more hardcore coding. It’s so weird to think that Tuesday night was the fourth time I had seen the band the Antlers, seeing how at this time last year, I had never heard of them. I believe it was Allison who first realized how good this Brooklyn band was, and how great their debut album Hospice was. I was then slowly converted, ever so skeptical of my fellow PM writer’s musical taste. Well, as it turns out, she was right and I have taken to this band like a mongoose to a cobra.

So Tuesday night was my fourth time seeing the Antlers. They were at Massey Hall opening for The National. I had arrived earlier then expected, and thus was able to soak in the atmosphere of a somewhat empty Massey Hall. The architecture in that place is quite nice. I like the nice arching roof. I was reminded of that fight scene in Bioshock. You know the one. The band took the stage shortly after 8 to a pretty empty crowd. It was a good thing that the lights were dimmed because then the band could imagine that they were playing to a packed house. Much like a horse with blinders.

The band played a stellar 45 minute set, featuring the songs from Hospice. It was great to hear them in the Massey Hall setting, because unlike their quiet-ish album, the Antlers live set consist of a massive wall of sound. There is a constant feedback kinda sound (much like a jet engine) throughout the set save for the more tender moments (Bear, some parts of Two). The set seemed to start off slowly, as the band was feeling their way out on the massive stage. Massey Hall’s stage is a large space, especially for a 3 person setup. They seemed to hit their stride with the song Bear, which as always, was great. The outro for the song featured about five minutes of noise layering on top of more noise that tested the volume limits of the venue. I think the crowd who didn’t know the band was in kind of shock over the amount of volume that the threesome was generated. By this time, the place was starting to fill up.

Their standout track Two followed shortly after. As I had stated in my sxsw review of this band, this song live is a bit different then on record. The song starts off with a choir-ish oos before the music plays and then is followed by a brisk chance of tempo that moves the song along at a much quicker pace then that of the album, still really good. Ending the set with the song Wake, the band delivered a great and heavy set that wowed anyone who was there, as evident by the massive applause that they got after their set.

I don’t think you can ask for anymore for an opener.

The Antlers – Bear by gpferrero

Concert Review: Athlete, June 7th, Lee’s Palace

Posted on

8 Jun 2010

Ricky

Toronto – Much like the Turin Brakes show a few weeks ago, the Athlete show on Monday night was a show where there were few new fans, but a nice collection of old die hards who had already memorized most of the lyrics of all the popular Athlete songs. For me, it’s always amusing to see a band that could probably fill a venue five times the size of Lees Palace overseas come here to a crowd of about 100-124 people. Maybe it’s humbling. The UK band was in town to promote their new album, Black Swan, which was recently released stateside after being released in England in August of 2009.

Starting with El Salvador, one of the lead singles off their debut album Vehicles and Animals, the casually dressed band delivered a hit filled set for 80 minutes that satisfied even the most hardcore fan’s appetite. I will be the first to admit I was not the biggest Athlete fan coming into the show, and I had only a passing interest in seeing them live (really, I just wanted to hear a live rendition of Wires) however, I was pretty much blown away at their set. They just produced a really good vibe and they are a really rock/pop band. Almost all their hits are radio friendly with nice melodies and catchy anthemic choruses. The show was also helped by Joel Pott’s wit and dry humour which produced the following exchanges:

Joel: I’m feeling particularly English tonight (while drinking a bottle of water)
Fan: If you were feeling English, you would be drinking beer!
Joel: No, If I was feeling English, I would be drinking…. ale.

To his credit, Joel and the rest of the gang did bring out the ale for the encore. The other memorable exchange of the night was this one

Joel: (telling an audience to purchase their single to hear some dub remix of a song)
Fan: (saying something about Joel deliberately hawking merchandise)
Joel: Chill out! I just saw Steve Jobs conference today, I feeling like making some sales

Needless to say, the back and forth banter between the band and the fans led the show to have a pretty high ‘intimate’ feeling. I would say the songs that got the best reactions were Half Light, Hurricane, You Got the Style and of course, Wires. You Got the Style induced quite the sing-a-long. I didn’t even know I knew most of the lyrics to that song until they played it. Weird.

Naturally, the set ended with the song Wires, Athlete’s biggest hit and best song. There’s something to be said about ending your set with your best tune, it leaves the audience happy and dazed and that’s how everyone was after they played the song, complete with an acoustic extended outro sing-a-long. All in all, an excellent show that would have made new fans out of anyone who was there who wasn’t already one, too bad most people there were already converted.

El Salvador
Superhuman Touch
Hurricane
Magical Mistakes
Black Swan Song
Twenty Four Hours
Half Light
Wild Wolves
One Million
You Got the Style
The Outsiders
The Getaway

Rubik’s Cube
Wires

athLete – wires by imfogg

Concert Review: The Darcys, June 3, Horseshoe Tavern

Posted on

5 Jun 2010

Paul

Toronto – The Darcys are a Toronto four-piece who play a form of guitar heavy indie rock full of propulsive drumbeats and driving basslines. They’ve been described as “Thom Yorke does Crazy Horse” and that’s a fairly apt description. Singer Jason Couse does sound a bit like Yorke, but he also reminded me of Patrick Watson at times. Moving between guitar and keyboards (sometimes within the same song), he was a pretty engaging frontman, but for me it was drummer Wes Marskell who really stole the show.

At the end of their set, the crowd up front was cheering for more, but Marskell took to the mic saying, “Thanks, but we have no more songs.”

The band was playing a release show for their new “House Built Around Your Voice” 7″ and everyone who came got a free copy with the price of admission. It’s a pretty good record – produced by Murray Lightburn of Dears and mixed by Leon Taheny (whose band, Germans, provided an entertaining but slightly sloppy opening set), it gives a taste of what’s to come on their upcoming Lightburn produced full length. Last I checked, the 7″ was available as a free download on their website.