Spencer Krug with Carey Mercer @ Fox Cabaret -- October 18, 2023

October 19, 2023 by Kirk Hamilton in live shows, Show Review

Hot off the release of a new album, I Just Drew This Knife, Spencer Krug returned to Vancouver alongside the album’s contributors, Eli Browning and Jordan Koop, for a rainy Wednesday evening show at the Fox Cabaret.

Opening the night was Krug's long-time friend, collaborator, and sometimes-bandmate, Carey Mercer, doing a solo set. Mercer started with a land acknowledgement -- and also acknowledging just everything going on in the world right now -- before delving into “Sound Travels From the Snow to the Dark”. From there he went through a selection of Frog Eyes songs, from the chaotic “Rainbow Stew” off the latest album The Bees, to “Bushels” from Tears of the Valedictorian, his distinctive voice filling the room.
Mercer also teased a few new songs, one which didn’t even have a name yet, as the growing crowd was rapt. One of the more attentive groups I've seen for an opener in some time.

Shortly after, Spencer Krug hit the stage alongside Browning & Koop, and kicked off with “God Knows Why This Is Where I Love You” from I Just Drew This Knife. They played just about the entire new album throughout the show, including the opener “Cry All Day”, their self-proclaimed weirdest, “Taxi After Taxi”, and “Nostalgia Is The Rose”, one of my highlights from the new release. Krug also slipped in a couple other songs from his recent solo albums, like “Slipping In and Out of Thee Pool” and “How We Have to Live”.

Throughout the show, Krug chatted with the crowd, sincerely thanking everyone for coming, but also self-deprecatingly joking he wasn’t a ‘guitar guy’ and admitting that, since the tour had just kicked off, this was only the second time the trio had played together onstage. And you would barely have noticed the fact... had it not been for a bit of a technical malfunction. Partway through the set, there was a catastrophic failure with the drum loops on the laptop, causing the set to come to a halt. But Krug eventually proclaimed “We’ll just fuckin’ figure it out” as they went into “Fading Graffiti” to continue on. There were a couple more hiccups with the laptop as the set went on, but the trio didn’t let it phase them too much, going through a few more from the new album, capping off my other favourite from the release, the soaring “Something About The Real World”.

I’ve seen plenty of shows before where things go wrong, and there are usually two things that will stop things from spiralling into disaster: the band keeping their cool, and the audience being patient. Luckily, this show had both of those in spades, so it only ended up a hiccup in the show. Krug didn’t let his frustrations affect the rest of the set, and everyone in that room was just happy to hear him play.

setlist
God Knows Why This Is Where I Love You
Cry All Day
Orcas
Taxi After Taxi
For Fear That Songs Come True
Slipping In and Out of Thee Pool
My Muscles Are Fine
Fading Graffiti
River River
How We Have to Live
Nostalgia Is The Rose
Love Song
Something About The Real World

PBR20 w/ Frog Eyes, Gold & Youth, Frankiie @ The Rickshaw Theatre -- 03/04/22

March 07, 2022 by Kirk Hamilton in live shows

Twenty years ago, Paper Bag Records released their first album, Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It in People. Since then they've worked with countless bands, including (but not limited to) Stars, controller.controller, Tokyo Police Club, You Say Party, Sam Roberts, The Dears, Frankiie, Gold & Youth, and Frog Eyes. And last Friday, the latter three took to the Rickshaw Theatre for the Vancouver chapter of the PBR20 celebration, a weekend of live shows in venues across the country, and livestreamed to the world.

The first band up was Frankiie, who were down a member thanks to our "good friend movid". But the remaining three picked up the slack for a fun set of their dream-rock sound. And despite being a little short, the band was clearly having a good time on stage, joking around with the audience between tunes.
Songs like the crunchy "Easy Breezy (Je Sais)" and the witchy “Funny Feeling" — which closed out their set — were easy standouts, for the band’s set that seemed to go by too quickly.
I had been meaning to catch Frankiie live for a while now (well, I mean, even before our good friend movid) and hopefully it won’t be too long before their next ‘full strength’ show!

Next up the stage filled with smoke and blue lights as Gold & Youth launched into the Nick-Cave-ish "Empire State of Mind" from their latest album Dream Baby. The song started soft and built to a crescendo that set the tone for their time. The voices of Matthew Lyall and Louise Burns intertwined together very well on songs like "The Worse The Better", with Burns even taking center stage for "Ruins". Other highlights included the brooding rhythm of "Maudlin Days (Robocop)" and the finish of the set, an almost-spoken-word "90s Night".
However, I don't think it's a secret that the Rickshaw is... not my favourite venue in the city, and sometimes the room does no favours to bands, especially ones as rich & dense as Gold & Youth can be.

And finally, closing out the night was the reunited Frog Eyes. Their first show since 2018, Carey Mercer, Melanie Campbell, and Shyla Seller were joined by the illustrious Paul Rigby for a set mostly focusing on their upcoming album The Bees.
The album isn't out until next month, but songs like "Scottish Wine" and "Speck of Dust" caught my ear immediately, having the familiar sounds of Mercer's voice chaotically wailing through the room, and the frantic intensity as you would expect from the band.
Aside from the preview of new songs, they also slipped a couple older ones in, like the old favourite "Idle Song", and a brief encore consisting of "A Latex Ice Age". Even before the band split, it had been quite some time since I last saw them live, so I was very happy to hear not only about the reunion, but to see them live again.

In all, it was a very fun night showcasing some of the finest among Paper Bag Records’ current roster, and a room full of familiar faces there to support the bands, the label, and the local scene.

Review-kus.

June 21, 2010 by Christine McAvoy

My goal is to review every album I bought (or otherwise listened to) this year. But there are just so darn many albums, and sometimes I just don't feel like writing a full reviews. So to combat this, I have decided that I shall give a few really quick reviews all at once... in haiku form. Here we go!

Shane Turner Overdrive by Shane Turner Overdrive (solo album from member of bands like: Love and Mathematics, Woodpigeon, The Choir Practice and Fanshaw)