The National, Neko Case, Wye Oak @ Air Canada Centre, December 8, 2011

  The National @ Air Canada Centre: photo by Michael Ligon

Just taking a moment to post a link to my photos from the fantastic triple bill of The National, Neko Case, and Wye Oak which happened down at Air Canada Centre near the beginning of the month. By all accounts, it was a fantastic show. Part of me was dreading having to see the show at Air Canada Centre, but the "theatre" configuration that the venue was transformed into, combined with my fantastic seat which was just about dead centre in the 100's section, gave me a terrific view for the show. First openers, Baltimore indie rock duo Wye Oak, did a fair job entertaining the sparse audience on hand with their moody, melodic, indie rock. For a duo, their sound sounded quite full, making a lasting impression on the audience. Vocalist Jenn Wasner, gave thanks for being on this great bill with The National and Neko Case, and humorously expressed that the all thing bad about playing these shows was getting drunk too early in the evening.

The last times I'd seen Miss Neko Case live was back in 2009, having seen her twice, first at Trinity St. Paul Church in April of that year, then later that summer making her debut at Massey Hall. For various reasons, both shows weren't in my opinion the best I'd ever seen Miss Case, surprising when given those venues, one would hope those shows would have knocked me off my feet. Even more surprising is that Neko's most recent local show, this time at Air Canada Centre, ranks as one of the best sets of hers I've ever seen. Paced well, many of the set's songs were taken from her last few albums (Middle Cyclone and Fox Confessor Brings The Flood) with a couple of new songs sprinkled in. Neko kept her humourous banter flowing throughout the set between songs, seeming giddier, and well naughtier than ever. Joining her on this tour was guitarist Paul Rigby, bassist Tom V. Ray, backing vocalist Kelly Hogan, multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse, and for this tour specially, John Convertino of Calexico on drums. Musically tight as I've ever heard Neko, highlights included the pristine "Vengeance Is Sleeping" with Kelly on background vocals and Paul on guitar as well as the raucous "Red Tide" with particularly fiery background vocals from Kelly. As always when they're in town, a shout was given to our own The Sadies (who wrote the song "Hold On, Hold On" for Neko). Fantastic set all around. Hope I won't have to wait two years until I see her live again.

As 'indie' bands make the natural progression from the small stage to bigger stages when they tour Toronto, The National have been one of the few bands that has just gotten better. I'd not have guessed that The National could have outdone the last show I'd seen of them in Toronto when they played a fantastic show at Massey Hall (one show of a two-night stint) back in June 2010 but by all accounts, The National reached even greater heights. What The National accomplished was making the night an experience on a variety of factors - such as visually interesting and colourful screen projections, humorous banter from vocalist Matt Berninger throughout the night, and encouragement from the band to keep the audience engrossed and participating. On that last factor, the Dessner brothers at one point got the crowd clapping leading to a natural transition to most everyone in the audience to stand up. From there on, the show just got better and better. Matt would later on invite fans onto the floor which would soon lead to a virtual onslaught of many more fans to invite themselves onto the floor (leading security to cut off the access to the floor, and Matt sheepishly pondering his original idea and whether it was such a good one). But perhaps the icing on the cake in terms of Matt's efforts was when he ran into the stands singing and proceeded to navigate himself through the seats (literally crossing near me a couple of rows up from me) from one end of the stands to the other and then back onto the stage. Man, that was one long-ass mic cord. Local musical hero Owen Pallett was a surprise guest joining in with the band on violin for a few songs including a new one. Things had just about reached their peak as the main set drew to a close but reached even higher with the encore, featuring a non-amplified rendition of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks", with the entire band and including Wye Oak making their way to the edge of the stage, performing acoustically and singing without mics. Singing with passion to the audience, which in turn drew the audience to sing along as well, the performance, transformed the environment into a very intimate setting. It's such a rare thing to experience in a venue as big as that, and I am truly thankful.

Photos: The National, Neko Case, Wye Oak @ Air Canada Centre, December 8, 2011
MySpace: Wye Oak
MySpace: Neko Case
MySpace: The National

Shearwater, Wye Oak @ Lee's Palace, Toronto (April 1, 2010)

  Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater: photo by Michael Ligon

Strangely, for a bill as strong as the one last Thursday at Lee's Palace featuring Austin's Shearwater, Baltimore guitar/drums duo Wye Oak, and Lawrence, Kansas experimental pop outfit Hospital Ships, it didn't sell out although by the time headliners Shearwater hit the stage there was a healthy crowd onhand.

Although what I'd heard of Hospital Ships through their MySpace was intriguing, to me reminiscent of the experimental pop style of bands like The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, I was running late and missed their set entirely. Chromewaves fortunately was there and has a review of the entire show including Hospital Ships' set. Strangely, when I'd arrived I thought perhaps the band that was onstage setting up was Hospital Ships but it turned out to be Wye Oak. So basically, I was later than I imagined.

The band had made their Toronto debut a few years back at Sneaky Dee's during the Over The Top Fest in May 2008 (which was soonafter the release of their debut album "If Children") but couldn't make it for reasons I can't recall. Already on to their second album entitled "Knot" released in 2009 I've been grossly ignorant of the band. Knowing that they were a young duo playing guitar and drums, the first descriptive word that I guessed might apply was 'spunky' which can be good but on the other hand there seems to be sufficient number of spunky indie-rock duos at the moment. The duo of Jenn Wasner (vocals, guitars) and Andy Stack (drums, keyboards, backup vocals) fortunately had more versatility than I'd hoped, generally taking Yo La Tengo's approach to writing keen melodies and breathing life into full-sounding musical arrangements notwithstanding their limited membership. But rather than Yo La Tengo's penchant for 3-minute lo-fi pop nuggets, Wye Oak tended toward darker pop territory, with songs that seemed more drawn out instrumentally at times. Jenn's vocals were femine but not brittle thankfully, alternating her guitar sound from quiet to loud augmented through the use of guitar pedals. Drummer Stack kept a solid backbeat but at times showed he was adept at more complicated rhythms. At the end the duo brought out Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg on a cover of an Americana-tinged number that unforunately I didn't get the name of but it was terrific.

Perhaps, the dimming of the stage lights for Shearwater's set was a good thing (a bad thing for photographers though) as it definitely helped to add to the mood created by the band's sweeping, dramatic folk-rock songs. It was definitely a far cry from the the first time I'd seen Shearwater during the band's late afternoon set at one of the medium-sized stages at last year's Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain. I'd only got on board with the band with the 2007 deluxe reissue of their 2006 album "Palo Santo", and through to their 2008 release "Rook", while I can say they can be enticing, it's mood music that I just don't find myself reaching for as often. So I had give "Palo Santo" a spin prior to the show just to remind me how good they could be.

Fans of Okkervil River and Shearwater will know that Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff collaborated together in Okkervil River then formed Shearwater together to write quieter songs and now Sheff has devoted himself to Okkervil River while Meiburg has done so with Shearwater. With such cross-pollination, there's some obvious musical similarities with both bands at one point or another treading dark lyrical territory, and expressing it through folk, country and or rock influences. But whereas Okkervil River feels more loose and ragged reflected in as much in Sheff's buoyant vocals, Shearwater seemed a bit more methodical in their approach - stark keyboards and strings, glockenspiel, clarinet, well-placed guitar and drum arrangements, and Meiburg's rich, dramatic vocals. In some ways and especially during the band's quieter, starker moments, with the solemness of Good Friday which was the day after the show, Shearwater seemed like a near-perfect soundtrack.

Photos: Shearwater, Wye Oak @ Lee's Palace, Toronto (April 1, 2010)
MySpace: Wye Oak
MySpace: Shearwater

Family Day

Ontarians(like myself) celebrate our inaugural new statutory holiday today entitled Family Day. Read - a day off from work(with pay!).

Pitchfork brings further updates on the upcoming long-time-coming 3rd full-length from Portishead including the tracklisting, cover art and new release dates. Follow the link for the first two items, but to save you the trouble, the UK release date is April 28 while the US date is the following day.

Other than some UK touring and an appearance at this year's SXSW, Montreal's Land of Talk continues to keep us in the dark about it's debut full-length(although here's a vague update from Liz). Hey, but that do have a new song streaming at their MySpace - ok, it's a cover, but it's a nifty cover of Wintersleep's "Weighty Ghost".

Toronto dance-electro-pop group Woodhands are Paper Bag Records newest signees. The duo's debut album "Heart Attack" is due out on April 1 in Canada.

And now on to the concert info:

If you were perusing the Canadian Music Week schedule(which btw, is shaping up interestingly) over the last few days and realized the absence of UK's The Duke Spirit on the sched(who I recall were to play Lee's Palace on March 8), it's unfortunately not a mistake. According to Filter, they've cancelled their Toronto shows and added a few more dates on the West Coast(which I guess makes more sense since they'll be in Los Angeles on March 5). Hey, maybe on the way back from SXSW on March 13 they'll swing through Toronto? Their newest album "Neptune" has it's US release on April 5 through Shangri-La Music.

I didn't make it out to the Brampton Indie Arts Festival last week, part of my disappointment being that I haven't yet seen Toronto act Forest City Lovers live. However, according to their MySpace they have a few local dates line up - they'll be at Soundscapes record store on March 9 at 2 pm for a free in-store then on March 14 they'll be at the Tranzac for a CD release show in celebration of their new disc entitled "Haunting Moon Sinking" out on March 11 in Canada on Toronto based label Out of This Spark. Several songs from the new album are streaming over at their MySpace.

Also at the Tranzac on March 14 will be Guelphites The D'Urbervilles who'll be celebrating their own CD release for their debut full-length "We Are The Hunters"(released tomorrow) also out through Out of This Spark. They have a whack of Canadian tour dates lined up through till the end of April - check out their MySpace for full dates and several songs streaming from the new album.

The Decemberists' Colin Meloy will be at the Phoenix on April 19th in support of his solo album entitled "Colin Meloy Sings Live". Fellow Portland, Oregon-ite Laura Gibson will open. (via Blacking Out The Friction)

Heavy psych-rockers Dead Meadow are at Lee's Palace on April 24. (via Beggars Group)

First word I've come across about this year's Over The Top Fest is that recent Merge Records signees Wye Oak will be playing this year's festival on May 2 according to their MySpace.

Pitchfork reports that Elvis Costello will tour with The Police in North America starting in May. There's a lone Canadian date, in fact kicking off in Ottawa, Ontario at Scotiabank Place on May 1 but the bill will reach Buffalo, NY for a show at HSBC Arena on May 3.

According to The Windish Agency, Shearwater will be on the bill with Clinic at Lee's Palace on May 11.