I owe a lot to Toronto. The fact that I live in close proximity (two hours) from a city that seems to have a spot on almost every tour really bodes well for my ears (and eyes.) I’ve been bouncing back and forth from Toronto to Buffalo so often lately I’m afraid the border guards may become suspicious and deny me entry. They haven’t, as of yet, thus I was able to catch another great show this Friday. I’ll just add here that as a venue, I really like The Phoenix. It’s spacious enough to house anthem bands like Wolf Parade and quaint enough not to drain the life out of a band like Girls. Now, I did have the added bonus of being front and center for this one, which I think is really important in this case. On occasion the band offers up a danceable beachy vibe, but the most endearing thing about Girls is Christopher Owen’s heart-wrenching lyrics, and often, larger venues don’t do that sort of thing any justice. It’s hard to imagine lines like “sometimes you’ve just gotta make it for yourself, sometimes baby, you just need someone else” or “and I don’t want to cry my whole life through, I want to do some laughing too, so come on, come on, come on, come on, laugh with me” bouncing off of walls and pushing through crowds. It just seems wrong to force something so intimate to be something it’s not. Both the aforementioned lines are from the song “Hellhole Rat Race”, and the band’s Friday night rendition may have been my favorite part of the show. Despite the fact that the song could very easily fall prey to crowd sing-along (which would be awesome, if one were at a Hold Steady show) the Phoenix was hushed and Owen and crew were allowed to do the song justice. The rest of the set-list pretty much entailed most of the bands only album (Album), a couple non-album tracks including the recently released “Life in San Francisco”, and an insanely awesome closing cover of The Everly Brothers “All I have to do is dream.” The band was much more vocal than I had heard they could be, and seemed to be enjoying the crowd, although I don’t think they’ll be changing the band’s name to “Mother-Fucking Girls” as per one fans suggestion any time soon.
Other things:
I will be attending two more shows next week so I’ll have those reviews eventually, as well as the preview of Record Store Day I promised. Music wise a new LCD Soundsystem track surfaced today, you can hear it over at Consequence of Sound:
http://consequenceofsound.net/2010/04/11/check-out-lcd-soundsystem-change/
The song is from the upcoming “This is Happening” and features a marked change in James Murphy’s usual quippy dance-beat direction. If the rest of the album follows suit with this track I’m sure to be a fan. I’ll be seeing LCD in Toronto (of course) in May, after the albums release so I’ll be able to see how the new stuff plays live. Until then I’ll just have to wait anxiously for anything else Murphy decides to offer.
I’m planning a ‘what I’ve been listening to” post for tomorrow but since I’m currently entering academic hell week I’m not making any promises!
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