The Kool Haus, then.
Along with the Sound Academy, one of my least favourite venues in Toronto. Similar in feel to a warehouse, aircraft hangar or giant futuristic metal cave, it seems better suited to bands like Kiss or Disturbed. You know, the ones where you could weld the doors shut after the show begins and not feel too sympathetic.
So it was a bit of a surprise when Wolf Parade were announced to play there. To be honest I didn’t think they were big enough to warrant such a venue, so I was curious to see how it would play out.
After taking the stage and kicking off with “You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son” (which also opened their debut cd “Apologies to the Queen Mary”) I was actually quite impressed with how they managed to use the space, utilising their sometime second guitarist Dante DeCaro to fill out the stage. For some strange reason though, Spencer Krug had been relegated off to the left side of the stage, leaving Dan Boeckner to take centre, enabling him to do some fairly (typical) “rockstar” moves, like windmilling his guitar.
They started flying through songs, with “Call It a Ritual”, their first single from their recent second album ”At Mount Zoomer”, being played early on. The band were very energetic, quite surprising considering it was the last date of a “very long tour” according to Boeckner. The band barely stopped for breath throughout, in some cases playing what seemed like speeded-up versions of some of their songs. After “Fancy Claps” Boeckner claimed that they’d never played the song so quick before. Whether this was for a certain reason, or maybe it’s from practice of touring, I’m not sure.
The musical divide of the band’s two frontmen was quite obvious from the setlist, with Boeckner’s more straightforward efforts coming right after Krug’s more experimental wobbly keyboard songs.
The fans were lapping it up, with trendier-than-thou types falling, pushing and spilling drinks over their v-neck t-shirts and plaid shirts. This is a bit of a bane at concerts these days – there seemed to be a lot of people there who were just showing up to look cool and take pictures of each other, but I suppose there’s always been arseholes at concerts.
After the main set closed with their 10 minute long “Kissing the Beehive”, they came back for a short encore consisting of songs from their debut, finishing with “I’ll Believe In Anything” which got the biggest cheer of the night.
Overall an impressive concert, which was very different (and I could say superior) to listening to their cds, simply from the fact that they put such a drive and pace into the set. Also, attention must be given to the barely mentioned Arlen Thompson, who kept the whole rhythm going, and the overlooked Hadji Bakara, whose keyboards and sound/noise manipulation work was at times incredible.
The full set list was:
You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son
Soldier’s Grin
Call It a Ritual
The Grey Estates
Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts
Language City
An Animal In Your Care
Shine a Light
Bang Your Drum
Fancy Claps
Fine Young Cannibals
California Dreamer
This Heart’s On Fire
Kissing the Beehive
ENCORE:
Grounds For Divorce
It’s a Curse
I’ll Believe in Anything
last song i heard – “faces on fire” – times new viking
Posted by allthegoodblognamesaretaken 