Mmmmm....Feist-y!

I left last night’s Feist show at Metropolis thinking “it’s early, I have some solid observations about this show, and thus, I will review this it for my blog RIGHT when I get home!”. Upon my exit, I had just begun to recollect and reflect upon the performances of the various numbers, formulate my thoughts, and was on the verge of mentally grading her performance.

Then, I stepped outside.

The one thing that really distracts me from my own thoughts, is a possible flight from safety. Now that you have a clear understanding of this, I’m hoping you can forgive me for not remembering every nuance of this show, as my safety was put in peril by completely frozen sidewalks. The forecast earlier in the day called for freezing rain, and the weatherman’s prediction became a reality while I was inside watching this concert.. As I stepped outside, my thoughts about how hot Feist is evaporated, and were replaced by the terror I was experiencing as a result of wearing very flat-soled shoes on a sheet of ice. The great thing about shows at Metropolis, is that it’s about a 5 minute walk to the venue from my apartment. The bad thing is that if we are faced with inclement weather which hits the city while I am inside the venue, I am stuck walking home in it. Snow isn’t a problem at all to walk home in. Rain is a bit more of a hassle. The cold just plain sucks, but none of these is really a big deal. However, frozen sidewalks will triple time of the walk home, and if you happen to slip on the hard, frozen concrete, it’s going to hurt. To complicate matters I live on uphill sloped street. When I am describing the location of my apartment to people, they all realize where I am, and to obtain confirmation regarding their own understanding, they will state to me “Oh, you’re up the hill, eh?”.

Thankfully, I only slipped once. No real injuries or pain. It was a pretty stressful walk. But the moment I got into the building, I decided I was going to attempt to re-gather my thoughts, and pound out the review I initially was gung-ho to write. And this is it. Ready? If you’re not, go take a break. Five minutes, ten minutes, an hour – it will be back here when you come back to the screen. If you are ready, read on.

I’ve owned Feist’s second (and breakthrough) disc “Let It Die” since the summer. By that time, she had already reaped heaps of critical acclaim, and has practically been anointed Canada’s leading lady of indie rock, and quite possibly, the queen of the global indie rock kingdom. Between her solo efforts, and her status as a part time member of Broken Social Scene, she has become indie rock’s “it” girl. Moreover, she recently re-mixed her cover of the Bee Gees’ tune “Inside and Out”, and it’s been all over mainstream radio playlists. So, it didn’t surprise me when they decided to move the show from the originally-slated venue of Le Spectrum, down the street to the more spacious Metropolis.

Her disc wasn’t hard to like. She has this amazingly beautiful voice, and she has a natural allure in voice and appearance. It wasn’t hard to convince myself to buy a ticket to her live show either.

She came onstage, looking out at the crowd, while shaking arms, hips, neck, and head. This was before a single note was played by her or her band. This said to me that this lady was ready to perform. Moreover, when you see her do this, you can tell she is going to enjoy herself over the course of the next 90 minutes. Or at least, she will make you think that she is going to enjoy herself.

The woman looks far better in person than she does on an album cover or in press shots. She has 3-4 backing band members, and I was completely unaware about how much guitar she plays. Switching between a huge Gibson guitar (take a look at these pics – NOT from the last night’s show), Feist enthusiastically proceeded to charm the audience for the next hour and a half.

If you were looking for a show that will keep you dancing the whole night, this was not the show for you. The music is very relaxing & soothing, as much of it is built around Feist’s lush, yet fragile vocals. Her style can be described as a mixture of crooning and warbling, all with an underlying air of seduction. She played a mixture of stuff from “Let It Die”, and a number of tunes from what I assume will be her new album. People who love “Mushaboom”, “Secret Heart”, and (a modestly rearranged) “When I Was a Young Girl” would have gotten exactly what they paid to see. Where there may have been a disappointment, was with “Inside and Out”. This was part of her encore, where she announced something to the effect of “This song is going to a masquerade ball”. Of course, I had NO clue what she was talking about. The song started off boring, slow, and Feist on electric guitar. By the time the chorus rolled around, it was obvious she had really slowwwwed down what is most likely her most recognizable and popular number. It was no longer the danceable, catchy tune that may very well have been responsible for many a ticket-sale. I’m curious to know to what degree this upset people (and if it didn’t upset anyone, I have greatly underestimated her fan base, in which case I apologize).

All in all (bad bar service at Metropolis notwithstanding), I enjoyed this show. It certainly isn’t an all-time personal favorite as far as memorable concerts go, but Mlle. Feist was definitely worth the price of admission.

Montreal Show Review Redux

Upon my return in mid-August, it became apparent that there were a lot of upcoming club gigs which featured all kinds of indie-set buzz bands. I was starting to get excited being able to see a lot of exciting live music that was all within walking distance of my downtown apartment. After having missed a couple of shows I said I was going to check out, I finally went to check out Brendan Benson playing at Main Hall on St. Laurent. I think it was a Monday night.

I had no clue what to expect….I had never seen a real club show in Montreal – my own hometown. That’s a topic for another blog. I arrived, and found out that I had an hour to kill before the OPENERS went on. Sheesh. Anyway, the openers were a local act called “The Ideal Lovers”. They were right up my alley, as they had a Wilco-type style, emoting a lot of blue-eyed country-ish soul. If you don’t know what that means, pickup Wilco’s double-LP “Being There”. No guarantees, but you should get the idea of what I am talking about. They played a couple of covers, and had about six solid originals, and were just plain enjoyable.

By the time Brendan Benson and his band marched onstage, there were a grand total of fifty people in the crowd. This is a guy who is on a major label. His crowds SHOULD be bigger than this. The guy is in a newly-formed band with Jack Black of the White Stripes – doesn’t this city KNOW that??? Anyway, Brendan saw there was a pretty lame crowd, proceeded to run the his catalogue and the motions all at once, and took off without even any pretense that he and the band were going to give the forty diehard or so fans who stuck around until the bitter end an encore. Not impressive for a guy who sounds like any pop-rock act out there. C’mon Brendan – build some bonds with the faaans, man. Kiss our ass just a little bit. Make us feel special, like we know some sort of secret that everyone else doesn’t. Show a little love to those who came out on a Monday – the night of the week where no one has ANYTHING to do. You’re clearly no household name, and can’t afford to come off like someone who’s too cool for school.

Next up, I checked out Jason Collette and Apostle of Hustle at Pop Montreal. This festival is a week long, has around 300 bands, is the buzz of the city, and yet I was only able to drag myself to see one “spectacle”, the Arts-and-Crafts showcase. In fairness to myself, I selected to go see this show over two others taking place at the same time: Black Mountain and labelmates Stars. I had seen the Apostle earlier in the year, as detailed in a prior blog. However, I had never seen Jason Collett, and had recently purchased his latest CD. I had always liked what I had heard from this guy. I figured that if I don’t like his act, the Apostle was a good safety net for the evening. None of the other bills had bands or acts I wanted to check out. It was an alright showing by Collett, but the Apostle chose to do the evening acoustic, and “sans-band” - which sucked.

Lastly, in mid-October, I went to see the kind of act I used to exclusively see – the jam band. Well, I don’t know if I would call Victor Wooten a “jam band”. He’s the bassist for Bela Fleck, who smelly hippies everywhere go bonkers over; so therefore, he’s a jam band guy by association (at the very least). If you’re into bass-wankery, surrounded by a fantastically talented backing band who know how to funk it up, rock it out, and make your head spin a bit, these are the guys for you. One of the cooler things about Victor’s band, is that his brothers play guitar and keys alongside him. These sibs are in addition to fellow Flecktone Futureman. That must have been one bitchin’ household growing up. I wonder if their parents used to yell at them for not bringin’ enough funk to the dinner table. So that’s a bit about what I’ve seen and smelt so far. Stay tuned for more of my inane ramblings...

Resolution for 2006 - End Procrastination!

Author’s Note: This blog was originally started on November 16, 2005. As I sit here with a mild hangover from last night’s New Year’s Eve bash, one of my resolutions (which will no doubt fall by the wayside in a week) is to be more diligent about completing projects I start. I’ll finish this blog up after the all-night Planet of the Apes marathon that’s JUST about to start…

I had tried to start this blog, oh, around four times now. Yikes. When I looked back at the number of separate Word documents I had begun to create – and not completed – I grew frustrated with myself. “Why am I not finishing the blogs I start?” was the pivotal question on my mind. I wasn’t sure if it was because it’s been so long since I last wrote & posted a blog (and thus am out of practice), if I haven’t had any thoughts around music in the last 7 months or so, or perhaps I suffer from some form of writer’s block. To determine the root cause, I felt I needed to turn to science! To do so, I donned a white lab coat, printed myself a fancy-looking laminated security badge, set up validation tests on myself, took blood & urine samples, and battered my psyche with a series of potentially dangerous experiments. The results arrived earlier tonight, and for those of you who know me, the answer will shock and astound you. Clearly, without any shred of evidence to the contrary, the tests conclusively demonstrate that I am…… lazy. Not just regular lazy, but the mainframe computer report which is sitting on my desk describes me as “slothfully lazy”. Ouch.

“It’s true” I thought to myself. I AM lazy. I have tons of ideas. I’m even too lazy to write them down in a centralized place when they pop into my head. Actually, that’s more disorganization, than laziness. But I digress. We’re all entitled to have two faults, especially me.

So, I figured that no time would be like the present to hash out some of my thoughts and opinions about music and other things that will amuse a certain segment of the population (translated, this means friends who read this blog out of pity).

Topic for discussion A: The Montreal Music Scene
Remember what I said about me being lazy? Well, it is not only a fact, but it’s proof as to how much better the music scene in this city is compared to…well, compared to how lousy I thought it was going to be. In reality, I have never had a context for how good or bad this city’s scene was. My opinions were solely formed on the fact that Montreal doesn’t get nearly the quality and quantity of shows that Toronto did (or does – like I said, what do *I* know???). How is my laziness proof of how good the music scene is here? Well, we need to examine the number of shows I have not gone to see that were of interest to me (ones that I said “Hey, Band X is in town – I should mark that on the calendar!”). I’ve passed up chances to see Controller Controller, American Analog Set, New Pornographers, Spoon, Black Mountain, Magenta Lane, The Golden Dogs, and a bunch of others that aren’t springing to mind. Some of these bands I know, and others I have only heard buzz about. But, either way, there is not a shortage of talked-about acts coming to Montreal to play.


Topic for discussion B: Shows I Have Seen Since I Have Returned to Montreal
My new life in Montreal kicked off with an ass-busting, fully-packed car ride to Montreal upon my permanent departure from Toronto (and after a night where I had only had around 4 hours or actual sleep because I was packing up my place until the wee hours), whose sole purpose was to get me into town early enough so that I could get down to Metropolis quickly enough to snag a ticket to see Wilco, with openers My Morning Jacket. This is as good a double-bill as I am ever gonna get. Mind you, if Wilco’s the headliner, it wouldn’t matter if Ryan Malcolm from Canadian Idol fame is the opening act (truth be told, I would settle for William Hung, from “making-a-jackass-of-himself” fame).

Lesson learned. Wilco never disappoints. They always put on a top-notch show, beginning to end. To me, all of their songs are winners, and to the 1200 or so fans who showed up to this show. I scored a seat (actually a barstool) in the upper balcony, dead center, a perfect view, and with no shaggy haircuts entering my path of sight. I was a happy, happy man. Music aside, the most gratifying aspect of this showgoing experience was the fact that I bought a ticket off a scalper below face value. God bless ticket scalpers.

I then took off for the entire summer to see the continent known here in North America, as “Europe”. I think this is a wonderful time to let you give your eyes a rest. I’ll have a follow up blog posted in a day or two, so that you can learn more about my zany antics in La Belle Province.