I've got better things to do at gigs than bring a camera along with me, this is a live shot from the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle.
Credit: Josh C
Dan Boeckner certainly knows the easy ways to get a crowd behind him, "Today we're officially banned from the United Kingdom but fuck those guys"* elicits an early roar from the crowd of the sort that you might expect from a republican rally (only with fringes rather than buzz cuts) demonstrating that in this modern and vibrant post/mid (depending on your perspective)-peace process Ireland a bit of mild Brit-bashing still goes down well. He's at it again later with the garnering of cheap pops by referencing his previous appearance in Whelan's as part of Wolf Parade by saying that the now refurbished, but not yet finished, venue is "pretty much my favourite place in the world to play", cue another cheer from the far from packed but respectably filled floor; that one may just be true though, on both of his trips to play here Boeckner's music has been rapturously received.
Fortunately for all parties involved Boeckner and his musical foil/wife Alexei Perry also have the tunes to make such pandering to the crowd unnecessary and most of the songs the duo played culminated with screams and people repeatedly and loudly banging their hands together, as is the fashion**. It was a short enough set; with Boeckner a constantly gyrating figure, spitting the lyrics into the microphone and spittle onto the people in the front row, whilst Perry hunched over and occasionally ducked beneath a table upon which were her synth and drum machine, which saw every song on Plague Park and nothing else being played. When it was over, far sooner than I'd have wished for, I couldn't help but wonder if it would have been too much to ask for Alexei to learn the keyboard part for "This Hearts On Fire" or something but upon further reflection I'm glad that she hasn't. I'm sure the band wants to succeed or fail on their own merits and not on the back of Dan's past (albeit recent) glories*** so it makes sense that they keep both bands separate as much as possible, if and when Wolf Parade do return to Ireland I won't be there expecting to hear "Handsome Furs Hate This City" (it's Toronto by the way) or for that matter "Shut Up I Am Dreaming Of Places Where Lovers Have Wings" by Spencer Krug's Sunset Rubdown being played.
* They've got pretty bad luck when it comes to travelling abroad for gigs if this is in fact true. The pair were prevented from entering the US earlier in the year due to visa issues.
** Far preferable to the finger snapping jazz thing.
*** I'm under no such obligation though, I already posted a Handsome Furs MP3 recently and if you want more than that you can go steal/buy the record so the track I'm posting to accompany this is a version of a song that is on Apologies To The Queen Mary. However before that album came out the song first appeared as the opening track to Wold Parade's debut EP. It's a much more dirty sounding version and it took a lot of listens to the album for me to come around to liking the Issac Brock produced version after being so used to this take on the song.
MP3: Wolf Parade - The Modern World from Wolf Parade (The 4-song one that came out in 2003)
3 comments:
So why are they banned from the UK?
Yeah its was a good gig apart from the guys who kept shouting.
I dunno, slow visa problems hopefully and not something that'll fuck up future Wolf Parade tours. I think those guys knew them as they helped clear the gear away afterwards.
I thought "you tune the shit out of that motherfucker" was funny but that "tight g-string" thing was quite cringy.
Yeah they were in the band who supported Wolf Parade when they played Whelans, thats what I was told anyway, the main problem with those guys, was I was standing beside them.
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