Hazards of Swimming Naked + Lion Island + Mr. Maps + Hunz
The Hi-Fi Bar, Brisbane
21st August 2010

Brisbane bands why has Webcuts forsaken thee? We try to make amends tonight seeing four in one go, but immediately the problem that plagued our last attendance at the Hi-Fi is evident again. Webcuts suggests The Hi-Fi invests in some inflatable extras or rent-a-crowd to pad out the room in future. Credit to Hunz, essentially vocalist/keyboardist Hans van Vliet joined live by Phil Evans on bass and Richie Young on drums, who perform like it’s a full house of a thousand punters. Hunz’ glitch-pop is heavy on percussion featuring electronic drum pads, acoustic drums and drum programming, along with keyboards from the Martin Gore school of moody synth lines. With the rally against consumerism of “Soon Soon” comparisons to Thom Yorke are inevitable, with both sharing a high register vocal range and the bleeps and syncopated beats are similar to those of Eraser. The set ends with “You Said Hello” which sees a more playful, funky side of Hunz and has Hans severing his ties to his keyboard to get into the groove and relish the frontman role.

Mr. Maps are record label lofly’s version of Marvel comic’s Avengers as every member either plays in another of the label’s roster or are involved in running the label and its Hangar nights. Thus this gig being concurrent to a Hangar is slightly bemusing. Indie promoters of Brisbane please synch your Google calendars! The first time we witnessed Mr. Maps’ complex instrumental rock was in the round(house) theatre to mark the launch of their Mimicry of Lines and Light EP. Eighteen months on and the band have shed a guitarist, leaving all duties to fall on the nimble fingers of lead songwriter Chris Perren, and drummers have also changed with Jacob Hicks now in the stool. After tonight he shall be christened Jac Hits for the ferocity that he displays towards his kit. Recent double A-sided single “Nice Fights” b/w “Fly, You Monumental Mistake” both encapsulate the Mr. Maps experience in four minutes: intricate guitar fills, piano and cello that switch from soothing to thunderous as required, rapidly changing time signatures, epic middle eights (or is it a middle sixteenths?), breathtaking peaks and gorgeous lulls. Mimicry’s “This Mess is a Place” finishes their tenure in a triumphant barrage of noise that provides a fitting end for their last show for the year. Hopefully the break will enable their debut album Wire Empire to receive all the love and attention it richly deserves.

The first we see of Lion Island is Matthew Vale alone on stage with only his voice and acoustic guitar to earn the attention of the crowd, but one by one his fellow band mates join him on stage and the act balloons to a generous six piece (one more, violinist Skye, is absent). This is indie-pop set to widescreen mode and seeing how Belle & Sebastian, James, Tindersticks and The Arcade Fire are permanently on this writer’s iPod as soon as we see a glint of brass Lion Island have won us over. Still Vale knows that all the instruments in the world won’t mask poor songwriting, and thus the songs are full of melody supplied by himself on piano and Bec on trumpet and diverse textures courtesy of guitarists Nick and Adrian, which underpin Matthews warm tenor that bears more than a passing resemblance to Finn Andrews from The Veils. With only an EP under their belt their set is mostly unknown to the crowd but the songs are accessible and immediate enough to entice the casual listener from the get-go. A new song “Underground”, possibly off their forthcoming debut album, displays a rockier post-punk edge. In it Matthew states how his “body’s lost to the sound”. So was mine.

The most obvious difference between Hazards of Swimming Naked and the previous three acts isn’t in their sound but in their visuals. Bathed in rich reds, blues and greens that matches their aural atmospherics I can’t help wonder how much better the previous acts would’ve have been if they’d had synchronised lighting instead of “Hi-Fi house white”. An additional bonus is the crowd swelling in numbers and confidence so that they cross the moat between upper carpeted levels and the stage. While Hazards play post-rock somewhere in the vein of Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky and godspeed, the band are ridiculously adept at it. While Rick Anzolin on drums and Cameron Diery are the rocks on which the whole shebang rest on it’s the three guitarists who demand and divide attention. Gareth Rigden takes centre stage and does the majority of lead fills and solos, Chris Lait plays slightly more chords but also adds riffs too, while Adrian Diery plays a mix of lead, slide, and just general rocking the fuck out. But demarcation of guitar parts is a fruitless exercise in the end, instead you have to let each part compliment the others and allow the wall of sound to either infuse through you or wash over you. Drawn mainly from their debut album, 2009’s Our Lines Are Down, picking set highlights is a bit like choosing a lucky dip where all the prizes are the same, but special commendation goes to the beautifully intertwining melodies of “…and a Whole Assortment of Uppers and Downers”, the economic four minute wonder with clipped guitar “Sparks Fly”, and the closing paean to Italian horror director Dario Agento, “Don’t Cry for Me, Dario Agento” who should get the band to score his Profondo Rosso remake. Brisbane: three gigs across town, one venue chosen, four excellent bands seen. Let’s do it again. Soon.

Photo credits: Chris Butler, Caleb Rudd

Hazards (L-R): Adrian Diery, Rick Anzolin, Gareth Rigden, Chris Lait, Cameron Diery

Warpaint
Camp Basement, London
August 26, 2010

It’s shows like this which give birth to the very nature of rock and roll. The hip-swaying sounds of a band as they rock back and forth, eyes closed, mouths pressed against the microphone, their feet marking the beat. It’s an undeniably sexual thing. This isn’t news. It’s why they tried to ban Elvis in the 50’s. He turned young girls on, and it wasn’t so much the man, but the music, the stage, the sweat, the motion — the rock and roll of it all. Wedged together in this barely ventilated Old Street basement, Los Angeles’ Warpaint are presiding over something that had this been the 50′s, would’ve gotten them banned too.

The phrase “pregnant with song” has never been more appropriate for Warpaint. Tucked away recording their debut album (entitled The Fool) these past few months, the girls are back in town to play a warm-up show before their appearance at the Reading and Leeds Festival. As warm-up shows go, it’s less a warm-up and more a sauna. As the evening progresses, sweat is visibly pouring down their collective arms and if Warpaint were wearing any, it would be pooling in a mess at their feet. In a set that draws heavily from their debut EP, Exquisite Corpse, and the new album, the difference between old and new is barely negligible. Warpaint have a sound and its something they’ve clearly spent years refining.

Textural pieces like “Stars” and “Undertow” build palatially and hit in waves, but when the band weave together a simple bassline and some skeletal guitar, as on “Beetles” they come across like a beautiful mix of the New Age Steppers and the Tom Tom Club. The girls are all smiling to themselves and swaying to the music, and the audience are locked in the groove with them. New material like “Composure” and the self-titled “Warpaint” feel much less spectral and melody-driven. The voices are stronger, the music more rhythmic and tempered with aggression, and if they weren’t already signed to Rough Trade, they’re the archetypal band you’d expect to see on their roster, circa 82/83.

Saving their signature tune till last, the four girls become one on “Billie Holiday”, a track the over-excited audience had begun spelling out the title long before it was reached. As the harmonies weave from voice to voice, the word spelling, spell-catching song forms a gently rocking lullaby. A slightly rambunctious ending breaks the trance and the girls disappear while the tune still lingers. Fast forward a couple of months when The Fool is released, that effect will be more pronounced and the spell widespread. Warpaint are coming.

The Walkmen
Islington Academy, London
25th August 2010

“You’re one of us, or you’re one of them“ — Hamilton Leithauser, fist wrapped tight around the microphone as if he’s trying to strangle it, is carving up those words. The rest of the Walkmen, heads bowed (as they remain throughout most of the set) act complicit and provide the carnival-esque roar to ram Leithauser’s words home. It’s not so much a question or a suggestion but a statement. For better or for worse, for way back when the band were selling their own white label records at the Middle East in Boston in 2001, I’ve been one of “us”.

The Walkmen are one of rock and roll’s most determined underdogs. Arriving at the same time as the great New York explosion of 2000, the members of The Walkmen chose to avoid the excess and hype that encumbered the late Jonathan Fire-eater (a band that several of The Walkmen appeared in) for less troubling waters. As The Strokes, The Rapture, Yeah Yeah Yeahs et al, climbed aboard their cruise ship for fame and moderate success, the modest vessel The Walkmen built themselves managed to chart the same waters but not chart the same charts.

Scheduled as a warm-up date for their appearance at the Reading and Leeds Festival, The Walkmen appear gamely ‘up for it’. With their sixth album Lisbon ready to drop in three weeks time, there are new songs and fresh optimism in the offing. The ticking clock rhythm and Leithauser’s  “I would give you my heart/I would give you my love/but my heart’s been broken” on “Blue As Your Blood” show that the downbeat/downhearted feel that’s been plaguing The Walkmen the last few albums is still present on Lisbon. You crave to hear keyboardist Walter Martin play a jaunty riff and for the rest of the band to fall in as Leithauser grips the microphone like a bunch of flowers and proceeds to tell the assembled what a great day it’s been.

There’s still the optimism present in You & Me’s “In The New Year” and the vigour in the stupor-wakening new track “Angela Surf City” that give indication that The Walkmen may still be underdogs, but they haven’t fully become the weary “woe is me” kinda band. But oh, quelle surprise as Leithauser introduces another new song (sans irony) entitled “Woe Is Me” which from the start of Paul Maroon’s clanging guitar riff never has a chance to descend into self-pity.

It’s old friends like “Wake Up” and “We’ve Been Had” from Everybody Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone and the manic frenzy of the near-smash “The Rat” which make the transition into Lisbon material less of an unfamiliar encumbrance, and an encumbrance it surely is not. If there’s anything to be certain from this next chapter in the book of The Walkmen, is that the distinction between which side you’re on is finally starting to pay off.

The Besnard Lakes
The Garage, London
19th August, 2010

The Garage is the type of venue you want to see bands in. The room is not too big but the sound system is. The bar is at the opposite end to the stage so you’re not getting shoved constantly by people in search of their next drink. The room feels immediately comfortable, even strolling in only a few minutes before the announced set time. A few minutes in and the cracklings of distant AM radio and e-bowed guitar of “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent” was filling the space.

Given the massive sound present on The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, there was some anticipation in how the band were going to pull this off as a four piece. With the newer tracks being a lot denser and harder to recreate live without either a 10 piece line up or a maze of effects and loop pedals, assistance came via laptop, which helped embellish the sound and keep true to their recorded material. Leading man/guitarist Jace Lasek’s voice also had a lot to do with this; the man is pitch-perfect with the lungs of a bear and a falsetto that Brian Wilson would be proud of. Looking like a cowboy version of Brendan Fraser’s character in “Encino Man” – pre-make over, Lasek was endearing, mixing onstage manoeuvres straight of an 80’s metal band’s catalogue with that type of introspective shoe-gaze “vacant stare” with ease.

There were a smattering of new songs first up, “Glass Printer” and “Albatross” rumbled heavily through The Garage’s beefy system, coming off as near replicas of the album before they settled into the first older track of the set. “Devastation” brought the mood down a little and you could notice the different direction with the new album, relying less on typical song structure and focusing more on building and layering sounds. Highlights included “And This is What We Call Progress” and “Light Up the Night”, showing off the vocal talents of not only Lasek, but also wife Olga Goreas, and the perfectly placed “Disaster” giving everyone in the audience a chance to sing along after hearing one of the longest guitar fuzz solos in history.

Coming out for a surprise second encore as the crowd were filing out, a quite vocal lady was granted her request for “Life Rarely Begins with Tungsten Film” from their so-far untouched first album, Lasek remarking cheekily that he didn’t know how “Tungsten” would sound so he only wanted the die-hard fans to hear it. As if suddenly overcome by nervousness, a smoke machine roared into action enveloping the band (and the front 3rd of the room) with smoke. The audience listened on, struggling to see a few inches in front of them, which gave a very surreal end to a very great gig. With the way the album titles are being named, it will curious to see how the next one is going to come out. Future prediction – “The Besnard Lakes Are the Fucking Bomb”.

Steven Edson.

Dean & Britta + Shearwater
Barbican, London
30th July 2010

Releasing their soundtrack to 13 of Andy Warhol’s screen tests was an opportune moment for ex-Galaxie 500/Luna star Dean Wareham to fully express his love for Velvet Underground and the stars of Andy Warhol’s Factory. The screen tests alone, wavering between the visually arresting and the arrestingly mundane, were elevated into a new realm with the musical accompaniment provided by Wareham and partner Britta Phillips. Bringing the 13 Most Beautiful show to London (having frustratingly been given its UK premiere in Dunfermline last year) was a long-anticipated occasion.

The presence of fellow Americans Shearwater as support allowed the band to take advantage of the Barbican’s incredible acoustics, filling the air with the ominous beauty of their music. From leader Jonathan Meiburg’s perspective, the unmoving, unlit, audience appeared to the band as if they were playing to darkness. “It’s like staring into the void”, he uttered, and when a few random voices yelled out “We’re here!”, Meiburg piped back “…spoke the void”. Shearwater played what would be considered a ‘seated’ set, highlighted with tracks from their slightly underwhelming current album, The Golden Archipelago. It was only when reaching into their back catalogue, as they did with the storming “Century Eyes”, did Shearwater wrest life out of the void.

A predicament was met quite quickly while watching Dean & Britta (appropriately all dressed in black) and band performing in front of their selection of Warhol’s screen tests. Do you watch the band, watch the screen, or try and juggle both? The latter was almost impossible as eyes were often found focussing on the live performance while only occasionally glancing at the images on screen. While there was no mistaking the allure in Edie Sedgwick’s doe-eyed stare, Lou Reed’s 3 minute Coke commercial, or even lamenting the recent passing of Dennis Hopper, it was often the live performance of their recorded accompaniment that was the most satisfying.

Be it that the music was more interesting than the subjects or not, there were several moments during the performance where both sound and vision worked as one (with each screen test prefaced with a short introduction by either Dean or Britta). The best example being Freddy Herko, the dancer who notoriously danced himself into a frenzy before launching himself out a fifth floor window to his death. The music, both intuitive and aware, grandly played to Herko’s own feverish finale. Their reading of Bob Dylan’s song for Nico “I’ll Keep It With Mine”, and Velvet Underground’s “I’m Not A Young Man Anymore” offered much an historical context as a literal one. Something the elder Lou Reed, captured in his 1966 prime, would attest.

The Pixies
The Zoo, Brisbane
31 July 2010

A few nights before this Pixies warm up concert for Splendour in the Grass, I had a vivid dream. In it I was the tour manager or press officer for the band and they were being put up in a luxury hotel with a huge swimming pool which they were swanning around in and (in)famously not getting along and refusing to do the show. It ended with me giving them a “look all the great rock’n’roll bands are dysfunctional, but when you’re on stage for that hour and a half you come together, that’s when you work, that’s when you function!” speech. And then I drove them to the Zoo in a black hummer.

On the actual night there was no hummers, no hissy fits and no animosity, well none visible to the audience. Deal and Francis were almost within three meters of each other (surely breaking a clause in their contact) and while there wasn’t much banter or eye contact between the two, it wasn’t like Mr. Black gave either audience or bandmates any recognition and they did share a joke at Lovering’s expense towards the end of the set.

Never seeing them in their first wave I can’t tell you exactly how they’ve aged but the Pixies were always unlikely looking rock stars — the guys were balding back in the late ‘80s, and Frank has never been a slender gent, so the 2010 Pixies really didn’t look all that different from press photos dating back twenty years. Black Francis, surely a millionaire by now, looks like he buys his clothes from K-Mart’s bargain bins, Joey Santiago a shifty looking metal rocker, Dove Lovering a mild mannered maths teacher or accountant, while Kim Deal… well Kim Deal is still cool. But their looks have always been deceptive as they soon proved: Santiago was a consummate guitarist, playing the main riffs and lead breaks faultlessly, Lovering pounded the bejeesus out of his drum kit while Deal plucked those timeless bass riffs perfectly and her sweet backing vocals proved a nice respite to Francis’ sing-speak-scream, who with his eyes closed most of the time, played rhythm guitar with focus and intensity.

Although the Pixies had visited Brisbane only back in March this time the set list was uninhibited by the myopic focus on Doolittle. Thus we got the full spectrum of the Pixies’ canon from the punk infused scream-a-thons (“Rock Music”, “Broken Face”, the Spanish language “Isla De Encanta”), to the classic trading of bass heavy verse/guitar distorted chorused anthems (“Bone Machine”, “Gouge Away”, “Gigantic”, “Hey”),  bubblegum pop (“Here Comes Your Man, “Dig for Fire”, “Monkey Gone to Heaven”), flirtations with heavy-rock (“Allison”, “Planet of Sound”) and riff-bliss indie rock (“Velouria”, “Head On”, “Debaser”). With twenty-eight songs, four more than their Splendour set, no one in the audience who witnessed this show — a gift from the heavens if ever there was one — was complaining.

Mark Kozelek
Union Chapel, London
29th July, 2010

“Give me a minute and I’ll blow your minds“. The crowd laughs, so does the man who just uttered those words. The mood, somewhat quiet, respectful, shiftless, is lightened, and he begins another master-class in tinkling the nylon strings of his Spanish guitar like Liberace would the piano. “I’m old” he breaks the silence again, “I’m fat, I need water, I need lyrics to my songs”. From my pew to the right side of the stage I have to squint to see if it’s not Neil Young sitting there complaining about his arthritis. To Kozelek’s credit, he’s still as ageless as ever, and that gut you were grabbing at? I’m pretty sure you’ve been carrying that for a while now.

Kozelek’s playing style has morphed from a simple six steel string strum to a more delicate, finger-picked style played on a nylon-stringed Spanish guitar in which his latest album under the Sun Kil Moon moniker Admiral Fell Promises is given over entirely to and for the entire set doesn’t leave his grip. Old Red House Painter tunes like the breath-taking “Katy Song” and “Void” have be remodeled to fit this new style, now intensely, carefully, with sudden dalliances up and down the fretboard, revealing a new side to Kozelek, one that is almost focused solely on the guitar. Long passages of songs begin in that string rumbling style, skipping along, repeating phrases of notes, building momentum.

Those unfamiliar with Admiral Fell Promises would’ve been found wanting with Kozelek’s predilection for new material, playing seven out of the ten songs in the course of the night, only briefly wandering off-course to treat us with Ghost of The Highway fave “Carry Me Ohio” and “Duk Koo Kim”. His attempt at banter often fell flat — berating someone in the crowd who asked (I believe) about guitar tabs, telling the assembled to do away with their facebook pages and websites and to essentially get a life. But that’s Mark Kozelek and you have to sympathise to a degree how to manage the awkward silences between having to change guitar tunings with every song. It sounds like he came with his patter prepared, almost in the way he flubs his own lines.

The new songs, muck like Kozelek’s previous album April, belay a certain sense of ‘memorable-ness’, of a chorus or something within the song that the listener can grip on tightly to and anticipate its return. There’s little deviation in style and Kozelek has almost become as predictable as a songwriter as he is with his stage banter. His performance at the Union Chapel was near flawless which perhaps was the main problem — Kozelek is just too good at what he does. But for the last song of the night, Kozelek, rewarding the audience with a live untested version of Admiral Fell Promises “Bay of Skulls”, showed he was human after all, becoming so entranced with getting a section of the song perfect that after three attempts, his amusement growing with each failure, he put down his guitar and acceded defeat to a round of applause.

Black Cab + Grand Atlantic
The Hi-Fi Bar, Brisbane
July 17, 2010

Apparently I live under a rock as I have only ever heard of, but not actually heard, Brisbane’s Grand Atlantic until walking into the Hi-Fi tonight. I then had my own personal Hot Tub Time Machine moment where I had been zapped back to the mid-‘90s. Grand Atlantic write big alternative rock songs, and if they were around during those heady days no doubt they’d have been signed to Murmur Records and performed opening sets for the likes of Oasis and Blur. Drawing on a host of that era’s international influences, they actually reminded me more of the Australian bands from that period such as Ammonia and Drop City. Grand Atlantic don’t hide their ambitions and their songs are ultimately written to sound good on large stages and arenas and tonight they get a chance to ply their wares on such a stage but unfortunately the Hi-Fi can be a lonely place when it’s well under capacity… like tonight. Despite this the band give their all with all members putting in fine performances in particular Sean Bower who attacked his bass with so much gusto he broke a string. Only a small handful of the crowd made their way to the stage to appreciate their efforts including a possibly OCD stricken punter who seemed solely focused on filling the empty space with bubbles. Tonight probably isn’t the best night to pass judgment on Grand Atlantic and I would be interested in seeing them in a situation where they are allowed to make a connection with their audience either on a large stage in a full venue or in the safer, more intimate, surrounds of a venue like the Troubadour. (Scott Daniels)

The break between sets is filled with a suitable selection of prime shoegaze and indie rock circa 1990-95 that sets the scene for Melbourne’s Black Cab to finally grace a Queensland stage. While Brisbane residents are used to being excluded from overseas artist’s tour schedules it’s not often we’re ignored for a decade by a band in our own country — usually an act has to form in South East Queensland and then move to Melbourne before they ignore us (cough Gaslight Radio cough). Tall, imposing and with a measured countenance throughout Andrew Coates is not a traditional rock front man but despite being bathed in the Hi-Fi’s constant red light, he’s perfectly suited to the grey, intense wall of sound produced by the band. Black Cab officially only includes one other, James Lee, who maintains an unobtrusive presence during the set but whose searing guitar work proves to one of the stand out of the evening. They are flanked by four veterans of the Australian underground music scene most of who have played on Black Cab’s albums which helps to explain the cohesiveness of the set.

The singles from last year’s brilliant Call Signs — “Church in Berlin”, “Rescue”, “Black Angel” — are reeled out early on and fans of the recorded versions are thrown at first. Live these songs take on a whole different feel, the electronic or acoustic elements are downplayed with drone rock pushed to the fore and even the vocals are different in intonation. The Kraftwork electro-pop of new single “Sexy Polizei” is the closest the band gets to the studio, despite lacking a Brumby on backing vocals, but the longer the band plays, the more into the opiate groove they and the audience get. When a transcendent version of “Hearts on Fire” ends the set, it’s uncertain how long the band has been playing for — has it been minutes or hours? — so easily it was to become lost in the delicious trance. A one-two punch encore pays respect to the forebears of drone-rock and post-punk, a brooding take on The Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” then a stunning version of Joy Division’s “Transmission” that shakes off the haze of the previous hour and leaves Coates’ sing-scream of “Dance, dance, dance to the radio” ringing in my ears as punters turn out into the cold street to catch a rather less appealing cab home. (Caleb Rudd)

Kaki King
Dingwalls, London
July 13, 2010

When does standing in the front row give you a direct line to god? Riddle me this, concert attendees. Just because your idol, or current object of interest, is able to look you in the eye while they’re singing doesn’t mean that this is your opportunity for some face-to-face “let’s get to know each other” time. Really, it doesn’t. And it’s rare that a concert is marred by one asshole that doesn’t get the hint and won’t shut up, but shit does happen, and it happened to Kaki King and to the respectful crowd who had to endure this one “fan” and his relentless pursuit in establishing a “connection”.

Of course, he thought he was the shit. He stood there, smug and rotund, gum-smacking away, at one point King spied him mid-chew, mouth open, and was disgusted by this oaf’s complete lack of respect and manners. Naturally, he stood there oblivious to his own spectacle, either trying to engage her in meaningless banter (or impressing with his bi-lingual talents) or just filming her every move, like some kind of obstinate voyeur. I can only sympathise with King for having to endure this nuisance front-on, but the blame in his ascendancy from mild irritation to full-blown pest was in part her fault.

It all started fine… King and co-hort Dan Brantigan took to the stage, making excuses for their absent drummer, with King being full of good humour throughout, explaining the meaning behind “Bone Chaos In The Castle” and relating her amusement (to the point of tears and inability to speak) about broken-backed daschunds with their legs in wheelchair chariots. It was perhaps her friendly, easy-going demeanour, established early on with a broken string and an impromptu version of “Communist Friends”, with King’s preceding “Does anybody have any….?” that set things on this unfortunate path.

Given that the track was from her latest album Junior, it was surprising in how little from it was played. This may have had something to do with the absence of a drummer, and the feeling this was very much an ad-libbed/seat of the pants set. The presence of King’s vocals on only a handful of tracks, with only the invite-to-a-pity-party “Sunnyside” (also from Junior) coming to mind at the moment, meant this was a largely instrumental set. To give full credit, it was Brantigan’s bong-like EVI-synth that lent a rather Pink Floyd-esque quality to the proceedings, battling King’s own nuanced guitar technique for dominance.

It wasn’t all plain sailing though. The feckless fuck in the front row remained undimmed right till the end. “Can I ask a question and a request?”, he ventured. Here’s a tip for anybody in an audience, don’t ask a musician to play someone else’s song as an encore, regardless of whether they’ve recorded it or not. You’re basically telling them “your own music sucks, play somebody else’s”. Show some manners, show some etiquette. Encoring with her magic-hands tour-de-force “Playing With Pink Noise” and the ambient pedal-steel beauty of “Gay Sons Of Lesbian Mothers” King showed the moronic champions of hack guitarists (“What do you think of The Edge?”, to quote our friend) what invention and talent (and charm, no less) really is.

Now, what do I think of The Edge? An Irishman with a delay pedal.

Arcade Fire
Dalhalla-Rättvik, Sweden
June 30, 2010

After eight and a half hours in a small crowded car with a backpack stuck on my lap and the rain pouring down I was wondering what the heck I was doing in the middle of nowhere. Could one concert really be worth this much trouble? The rain stopped and walking down the hill into the Dalhalla arena my doubts started dissipating and when the band came out on stage I knew I was in the right place.

Arcade Fire’s visits to Scandinavia have been few and their last visit in 2007 ended with Win Butler having surgery. This time he seemed to be in perfect shape, somewhat dazed to be playing in the middle of an old limestone quarry set in a forest far away from any well-known town. Dalhalla is truly a special place, or as Win put it “we should be thankful to the alien overlords for creating this beautiful place”. As stunning as it is it also demands a lot from the artists that play there. Firstly, the arena holds around 4000 people so the band has to attract a large number of people to come out into the woods. Secondly, there is natural distance between the band and the crowd created by the ten meter wide moat that surrounds the stage. Thirdly, the surroundings raise expectation and a normal show is just not enough.

Arcade Fire had a tough competition with summer holidays, the World Cup, the Peace & Love and Roskilde festivals all being on at the same time. Just over 2000 tickets were sold which felt like an injustice towards the band. The Canadians did do their best though to decrease the distance,  encouraging the audience to come closer. As the band struck the first chords of the second song of the night, “Keep the Car Running” people left their seats and flocked near to the stage. The band seemed to be living up to people’s expectations when they continued with two old songs “No Cars Go” and “Haiti”. Win and the rest seemed genuinely happy to be there and were swapping instruments with one another like chefs swap recipes.

Four songs from the upcoming album, The Suburbs, followed “Haiti”. It was interesting to get a sense of the new album. If it’s anything to go by judging from the songs played at Dalhalla it will not be as grand or as epic as the previous albums, instead being more scaled down. What was epic though was the interweaving of “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” and “Rebellion (Lies)”, two huge crowd pleasers. As I looked around the crowd were all smiles and the energy was flowing from the stage. One band member had more energy than the rest and appeared he needed to cool down. After almost falling into the moat by dancing near the edge William Butler threw a drum in and jumped into the water after it.

After about an hour I was surprised to hear Win say that “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” was their last song. Of course there was an encore which consisted of three great songs, including my favorite “Intervention”, but I couldn’t help feel let down. The night was still so young and the sun still up. Maybe I’m greedy, an hour and a half is a decent gig but I just expected more. It was a beautiful concert but it could have been legendary. A few more tickets sold and the band playing a few more songs as the sun set and it could have been the concert of the decade.