Pavement w/ Quasi (9/7/10 - Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, BC)The last time I wrote a blog was my super huge recounting of my 3rd straight Sasquatch festival, the highlight of which being witnessing the reuniting 90s indie rock group Pavement. In hindsight, preparing myself for finally seeing the Stockton natives may have been something I overhyped myself for. So this time around when their final leg of their reunion tour rumbled through Vancouver, I was careful not to overdo it when it came to listening to Pavement's discography... Sorry "Terror Twilight", no time for you.
I made sure to get there early enough to see openers Quasi as I knew they featured drummer Janet Weiss, formerly of Sleater-Kinney (also of Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks), and I knew that she packed a wallop. I really didn't know what else to expect from them but they were certainly entertaining, indie rock with song extended jammy sections to their songs, including one improsivational bass and drum jam that occurred when guitarist Sam Coomes broke a string early on in a song. A nice 40 minute (or so) set to start things off before what everyone came to see took to the stage.
Having seen them twice this past year, I think it's fair to say that I've got Pavement (or certainly this incarnation of them) figure out as far as their live endeavours go. In a similar manner to their set at Sasquatch, things started off with a bang with a front loaded set of great sing-alongs that make you want to jump up and down like you're in your early 20s and it's 1994 all over again. The guys have a bit of a reputation for being 'lazy' when it comes to playing live and I don't think that's necessarily fair but what I have noticed (and my friend Shaun made mention of it as well) was that about 2/3rds of the way through their set, there was a pretty noticeable drop off in energy on their behalf as they simply 'played' some of their lesser known, and lower-key numbers.
Don't get me wrong, I still love those songs too but they were just lacking a bit of 'oomph', except for the rare instance where multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovich took the vocal helm. I feel like I must mention (and I probably did previously as well) that lead singer/guitarist Stephen Malkmus has a certain way about him that comes across as him being bored or trying to entertain himself (because playing these 20 year old songs doesn't do it for him anymore apparently) and tonight was no exception. I really don't know what to think about that.
Things picked up near the end again as they rumbled through more classics, playing a great mix from all 5 of their records, the highlight for me being the beginning of their encore, "Gold Soundz" a song that when I hear it, I just can't help myself from smiling as well as singing along to... BTW, try doing that sometime, you usually end up laughing or sounding like an idiot. My only major disapointment from the evening was the lack of their first big single "Summer Babe (Winter Version)" on the setlist although I guess I shouldn't complain as I did get to see them play it at Sasquatch earlier this year. What replaced it was "Here", a low-key, melancholy song sung by Stephen Malkmus as a quietly plucked guitar line acts as the only real accompaniment of the song. A beautiful song for sure, but not the really dramatic ending to the night that I was hoping for... but maybe a more fitting one considering that this will go down as the last time I ever get to see Pavement again. I'm glad I got to see them twice because I'll also have the memories, but considering how much I've taken a liking to these records over the last few years, my two times witnessing Pavement live probably won't go down as some of the greatest shows of my life.
Setlist:
1) Silence Kit
2) Perfume V
3) Rattled By The Rush
4) Shady Lane
5) Frontwards
6) Heckler/In The Mouth Of The Desert
7) Father To A Sister Of Thought
8) Cut Your Hair
9) Kennel District
10) Unfair
11) Grounded
12) Loretta's Scars
13) Starlings Of The Slipstream
14) Stereo
15) Stop Breathin'
16) Date with Ikea
17) Conduit For Sale!
18) Spit On A Stranger
19) Old To Begin
20) Trigger Cut
21) No Life To Begin
22) Linden
23) Zurich Is Stained
24) Fight This Generation
25) Fin
Encore:
26) Gold Soundz
27) Range Life
28) Here
Burning Love w/ Baptists (9/7/10 - Funky Winkerbeans, Vancouver, BC)No you're not misreading the date of this show... following the great time I had at the Pavement show, I walked across downtown with my friend Shaun in hopes of checking out Chris Colohan of Cursed fame's newest band, Toronto's thrash-n'-roll-ers Burning Love. We showed up just as local openers Baptists were finishing up, whom I had heard a lot of great things from numerous friends and they definitely had a great energy to them and a pretty similar vibe to what Burning Love (and to be honest, a LOT of bands nowadays) have going for them. Unfortunately for me, it's bands like Baptists, as well as similar Vancouver bands Congress and Burning Ghats, that don't end up on the all-ages bills that I find myself going to more frequently.
Just before midnight, Burning Love took the 'stage' and I use the word loosely as it was basically facing the wrong way and had been recently added onto just so you could actually fit entire bands onto the damn thing. What followed was 30-40 minutes of punk rock at it's grittiest and most pure form. Drop C tuning, distorted guitars, and a thunderous beat... all of which was accented by what I feel is one of the greatest front men in music today as Colohan found himself pinballing all over the building whilest never failing to deliver his distinctive gutteral war cry. The set was predominenantly made up of material from their new record out on Deranged records, "Songs For Burning Lovers" which is seriously up there for one of my favourite records of the year. As much of a banger as it is, the live renditions of "Don't Ever Change", "Miserable Sound", and "Burning Love" made the record look like trash.
After the show was over, I found myself trying to hold back any potential 'gushing' as I talked to Chris Colohan while picking up the LP and a t-shirt. I'll repeat here what I told him that night; I was incredibly bummed when Cursed broke up two years ago, especially considering that I never got to hear material off of their last record "III: The Architects of Troubled Sleep" live. I never thought a band of that style could fill that void in my musical life but I can honestly say that Burning Love are the real deal and that they're doing a fine job.
NEXT TIME: For the third time in a year, TITUS ANDRONICUS! As well as the triumphant return of mid 2000s Vancouver hardcore mainstays IN STRIDE!
Nice reviews... I especially like how you describe Chris Colohan's vocals as a "gutteral war cry". Such a great & true description.
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