Yesterday evening I was pondering whether I should just stay in and nurse the cold I had(specifically, a pesky bout of chest congestion; and not necessarily helped by the previous night's chilly outdoor Feist show) or go and check out the show at Sneaky Dee's. I decided to choose the latter. I'm happy I did, but physically it was more than a little draining. I managed to make it through controller.controller's short set alright. Maybe that beer helped. As always, controller.controller sounded terrific, playing a mixture of old favourites like "Silent Seven" and "Disco Blackout" as well as a bunch of similar-sounding, but great new tunes. Like a group of explorers returning from an expedition, I noticed that the guitarists in particular had gone shaggy in the personal grooming department, what with Scott Kaija forgoing his coiffed 'do for a far shaggier look and Colwyn Llewellyn-Thomas growing out the facial hair. The band steamrolled through the set with not much stage banter but that was alright with me. Maybe lead vocalist, Nirmala was just trying get through the set and avoid eye contact with the drunken 40-ish looking idiot who kept on going to the bar then pushing his way back to the front of the stage. That aside, their set was a good lead-in to Ari-Up. As Nirmala had said, it was very surreal that they were opening for Ari-Up(whose original band The Slits were so influential to controller.controller's music).I'll admit that I've been truly oblivious to Ari-Up and The Slits' music. I'd only heard of The Slits back in the 90's when Luscious Jackson cited them as an influence but unfortunately I never got around to sampling their music. Luckily, I had remembered downloading mp3's of The Slits' debut LP "Cut" and was able to sample most of the album before the show yesterday. So I didn't feel totally out of the loop when Ari-Up and her band The True Warriors played several of The Slits' 'punky-reggae' classics interspersed throughout the set like "Shoplifting", "Love and Romance", "Typical Girls" and their deconstructed cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"(featuring a punky member of the audience taking a mic to sing along). Ari-Up also performed a bunch of tunes that she said would be on her new solo disc, ones that were specifically influenced by dancehall reggae, a direction that Ari-Up expressed that The Slits would have likely taken. Apparently, there are talks of a Slits reunion. This was a very high energy show, if not for the danceable/pogo-able punky-reggae songs but also for Ari-Up's outspoken personality and sexual bluntness. Alot of the crowd were dancing including several members of the audience getting up on stage for an old-fashioned freak-out session. Oh, and there were a couple of drunken dudes, who were initially entertaining to watch in a look-at-the-funny-drunk-guy sort of way, but whose antics quickly grew annoying.[For more on this, head over to Always Familiar] Really, drunk people are NOT funny. A hot sweaty club, the smoke of some nearby lit-up weed and my nagging congested chest was all that it took before I started feeling downright clausterphobic. At a couple of points during Ari-Up's set my lungs were almost begging me to leave but I managed to stick it out somehow until the main set ended around 2 am. Screw the encore, though. I had heard enough by 2 am and I really needed some fresh air so I took off for home. News of a Slits reunion is exciting because it's gonna be hot. Hopefully they pass through Toronto.
ps. No photos except for the one above. Half the time, I was just trying to keep my lungs filled with oxygen. ...I'm doing much better today, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment