You may have noticed that I'd chose to comment yesterday on the Rilo Kiley show(which occurred this past Thursday) and was mysteriously quiet about the Snow Patrol/Athlete show which occurred on the Wednesday. Well, that was no mere oversight. The fact that the Snow Patrol/Athlete show was at the Kool Haus didn't help but that wasn't really a major factor in my disatisfaction with the show. I was only a casual fan of Snow Patrol's recent singles("Run" and "Chocolate") and I was a fan of Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody's sideproject The Reindeer Section. I had no previous knowledge of Athlete's music other than the prerequisite comparisons to Coldplay which I'd read. I thought I'd take a chance then and check out this show. Musically, it turned out to be an underwhelming show. Had Snow Patrol's set consisted more of tender ballads like "Run" or that older indie-pop tune(off one of their Jeepster albums) which they performed, I'd have been more satisfied. Rather, the band chose more often than not to concentrate their efforts on songs that tended towards a modern rock sound. "Chocolate" had an urgency to it but nothing else really connected with me. When a band chooses to perform their most successful single to date(in this case, "Run") as their set closer, I wonder if the band questions the strength of the rest of their catalogue. As much as I like "Run" however, I only realized during the show, that it sounds like a rewrite of Coldplay's "Yellow".
If openers Athlete were complete unknowns to me before the show, I think they fared a little bit better with regards to my musical tastes. The Coldplay comparisons ring true with their mostly keyboard-driven atmospheric tunes but Athlete aren't afraid to throw in unconventional instrumentation such as theremin into the fold. My favourite song of their set was the jazzy guitar-driven "Tourist" which reminded of Phoenix. They performed their new single "Wires" as their set closer to the satisfaction of many fans, who had been verbally requesting the song(quite annoyingly) earlier in the performance. Even the lead singer had to tell 'em to calm down, politely of course. My first impressions of their music are good. If "Wires" takes off in Canada, I'm quite sure they'll be headling their own shows next time.
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Listen to the archived performance of Kings of Convenience's live session they did for Morning Becomes Eclectic on May 18, 2005.
Sleater Kinney did a live session for KEXP yesterday(May 20, 2005 @ 1:00 pm). The session's not yet archived but you can access the live session by accessing the streaming archive by date and time.
The Harbourfront Centre website is now updated with some details for most of its Summer Festivals.
On The Brink reflects on the history of Britpop and whether current bands like Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian are the beginning of a new phase in Britpop. And it's only his second post!
Did anyone happen to catch The Dears, performing "Lost In The Plot" live on Jimmy Kimmel Live yesterday. Fortunately, I caught the performance just in time. They sounded really, really good. And I think the guitarist was wearing a Stars t-shirt.
Tonight, The Decemberists and Rebecca Gates at The Phoenix! BTW, Largehearted Boy points towards a torrent of a DVD of The Decemberists performance in Cleveland from May 18, 2005. (Gotta make some room on the hard drive, if I'm gonna download that.)
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