Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks Concert Report

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks with Disappears at Lee's Palace Feb 23

Disappears

The opening band, Disappears, were quite different from Malkmus' indie/classic rock. They played a kraut-inflected variety of shoegaze that was both familiar and strange at the same time. The vocal parts were not especially interesting, largely consisting of repetitive chants. On the other hand, the band was consistently challenging with shifting and driving grooves. The lead guitarist had some amazing guitar sounds that at times were reminiscent of Neu!/Harmonia's Michael Rother and at other times sounded like a transmission from an alien society.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

Malkmus and company casually sauntered on stage quite excited about the fact that they were starting five minutes early. They played a somewhat-rambling hour-and-a-half set that was brought down somewhat by a less than exuberant crowd who talked amongst themselves for much of the show.  Despite this, the band seemed to be having fun and were very chatty. Their loose but skillful style of playing was evident throughout but it was a good but not great show.

The set largely consisted of songs from their solid new album Wig Out at Jagbags from which they played ten songs. The songs benefited from the looser, heavier sound of their live incarnation, particularly the singles "Lariat" and "Cinnamon and Lesbians". Unfortunately, the sound mix was a bit muddy and the bass was overemphasized. The songs didn't exactly start or stop, they gradually came together then collapsed. Malkmus has grown into an amazing guitarist and he threw in improvised riffs throughout the set. Their drummer often added backing vocals that reminded me a bit of Bruce Springsteen.

Another highlight with great guitar playing was "Senator", from the Beck-produced Mirror Traffic. They played seven songs from that album and they fit well with the new material. For the encore, the played "Stereo", one of Malkmus' previous band Pavement's better known songs, which got the crowd a bit more excited. They ended the show with a very loose medley/jam while Malkmus left the stage, allowing the band to finish the show on their own. While I saw how they could be a great band, I was left with the feeling that I wasn't seeing them at their best.

 

Wavelength Night 2 Concert Report

Wavelength Festival Night 2 at Adelaide Hall Feb 14

I'm taking a break from my Bowie project to report on some awesome bands. Marnie Stern was originally headlining this night but, due to flight issues, couldn't make it. Since I'd been listening to Marnie Stern all this week, I was pretty disappointed but I decided to check the show out since Wavelength always has something interesting and last year's festival was excellent. It ended up being quite worthwhile.

Matrox

Hail Matrox, our new robot overlords! The first band of the night and probably my favorite, these guys owned the robot rock. I was immediately impressed by the level of commitment in the costumes and presentation of Matrox. The music had elements of Kraftwerk, hardcore techno and some of the funkier Daft Punk songs, but still felt completely unique. My favorite track used TTC announcements like "506 Royal York, call control", to create a synthetic transit soul anthem. Could this replace Kardinal Offishall's "The Anthem" as the official Toronto theme song? Being the first band, they had the smallest crowd but definitely got the biggest response. "DISPERSE!!!.....DISPERSE!!!"

Most People

 

As someone with an occasional musical project titled And More, I appreciate a good ambiguous name. This duo was a last-minute replacement for Marnie Stern but still put on a polished performance. Their sound felt like a more sprawling, experimental take on Unforgettable Fire era U2. They combined strong melodies, plaintive vocals, soaring guitar riffs and occasional pounding drum breaks to a powerful effect.

Weaves

A strange combination of avant-garde and blues, Weaves have a very unusual sound largely held together by an outgoing and charismatic vocalist. The instrumentation was consistently unpredictable, veering from Zepplin-esque blues to atonal, aggressive riffage more reminiscent of no-wave acts like DNA or early Sonic Youth. Their songs often had a wandering structure characteristic of the blues. The only downside is that I think they could really benefit from a physical drummer as the programmed beats seemed stiff compared to the variable bass and guitar. I particularly enjoyed the bass player's intermittent thrashing on his instrument, a level of aggression one rarely sees with bass players.

Odonis Odonis

These guys were one of the bands that I was most excited to see as their sound particularly appeals to my tastes. Having listened to their music online as well as seeing them in person, I find that they are a band in transition. Their earlier material has a heavy Swervedriver influence on their sound and they perform this type of music quite proficiently. Their newer material has a much heavier industrial punk edge to it, and I feel that this sound suits them better and exposes more of their personality as a band. "Are We Friends" effectively demonstrates their newer sound and is one of their most memorable tracks.

DIANA

DIANA are easily the most well-known of all the bands playing this night. Oddly, in researching them, I found that they have a decent profile in Britain. They specialize in hazy, new-wave influenced synth rock. It's a sound that is fairly common in indie circles but they pull it off fairly well with strong melodies and good musicianship. They varied it up a bit with some heavy percussion breakdowns that got the crowd grooving. My favorite DIANA song is probably "Born Again".

Bowie in Total 3: Never Let Me Down?

And the decade started so well! Now we're entering the third and most painful section of Bowie's career, the 80s (with a little bit of 90s). Two awful solo albums and an ill-advised re-branding as Tin Machine managed to alienate most of Bowie's fan base while giving him his greatest commercial success. Many stopped here and never listened again, despite his excellent albums that followed this drought of talent. Bowie also develops a weird obsession with Iggy Pop, covering him on three albums in a row. Even after reading Bowie's various explanations and excuses, I still can't understand what could make a great artist go so bad. Fortunately, it gets better!

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

Bowie's last record produced by Tony Visconti for twenty years and his last good album for thirteen years, this album is easily one of my favorites and the one I come back to the most often. This is Bowie's last record with the rhythm section that he'd been with since Station to Station. Bowie offers some of his tightest songwriting with a generous dose of venom toward contemporary society. On the opener, "It's No Game (No. 1)", Bowie screams the vocals while Fripp wails discordant riffs and the lyrics are recited in Japanese, making for a thrillingly alienating start. The first side of the record is a burst of pure energy, spawning a couple big hits in "Ashes to Ashes" and "Fashion" while being as aggressively avant-garde as Bowie has ever been. The second half is comparatively quieter and more contemplative. "Teenage Wildlife" and "It's No Game (No.2) are about as intimate as Bowie gets while still being catchy as hell. My favorite songs on the album are the title track, which sees Bowie at his most fist-pumping, as well as "Teenage Wildlife", which conveys urgency and desperation perfectly.

Let's Dance (1983)

What was intended as a one-off experiment changes the direction of Bowie's career for the next decade. Produced by Nile Rogers, Bowie drags himself into the faux-funk, forced nostalgia and empty hedonism of the 1980s. Sometimes it works. The title track, "Modern Love" and a cover of Iggy Pop's "China Girl" have remained three of Bowie's most enduring songs. Bowie's vocals are uniformly strong throughout and the musicians are all on point, though Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitar doesn't quite fit. Unfortunately, "Cat People (Putting out Fire)", which was so awesome in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, seems a bit dull in it's full form. As well, other songs on the album, like "Ricochet", fall apart on their ill-conceived arrangements. Interestingly, producer/guitarist Nile Rogers, producer Giorgio Moroder and drummer Omar Hakim all featured on Daft Punk's fantastic album Random Access Memories 30 years later. While I would recommend "Modern Love" and "China Girl" as pop songs, the only great song on the record is "Let's Dance", which blends futurism and nostalgia into a dance sound that isn't revisited until 1993s "Black Tie / White Noise".                  

Tonight (1984)

A quickly recorded follow up to Let's Dance without Nile Rogers or any good songs, Tonight managed to further bolster Bowie's commercial success while firmly establishing himself as a mediocre, middle-of-the-road pop act. This was the most painful Bowie album to listen to, without a doubt, though at least it's short. The fact that Bowie thought it was a good idea to cover the Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows" in this style demonstrates that his judgement was way off. Iggy Pop, who was going through a similarly mediocre period, co-wrote five tracks on this album. One of Pop's co-writes, Tonight is a pseudo-reggae duet with Tina Turner that manages to embarrass both parties. The only songs that I found tolerable are "Loving the Alien", which was salvaged and rearranged to become a half-decent song for Bowie's 2003 tour, and "Blue Jean", the best attempt at a pop song on the album. Still, avoid at all costs.

Never Let Me Down (1987)

A marginal improvement over Tonight, this is still a fundamentally terrible album. Bowie seems to be more invested in this album than the previous two, playing more instruments and more actively developing the concept. Despite this, virtually every element is horribly ill-conceived, featuring a hideous cover and some of the worst musical excesses of the 80s. Massive, reverbed drums drown out any attempt at subtlety while Peter Frampton's obnoxious lead guitar manages to consistently annoy and somehow Bowie thought it would be a good idea to include a rap from Mickey Rourke. The sad thing is that, unlike Tonight, the potential for a good album is buried here somewhere. While some of the songs have good bits, I can't recommend any songs in their entirety.

Tin Machine (1989) and Tin Machine II (1991)

These were Bowie's only albums under another name and a partially successful attempt to restore his reputation. Backed by talented guitarist Reeves Gabrels, who would play on Bowie's albums for the next decade, and rhythm section Tony and Hunt Sales, Tin Machine is Bowie trying out late 80s hard rock. Overall, these albums are forgettable and the second album entirely unnecessary, but the performances are strong and there are some decent songs on here. Gabrels' guitar playing is strong throughout though often goes far over the top. A cover of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" fails miserably, drowning out Lennon's mournful lyrics in hard rock excess. At their worst, Tin Machine sound like the house band at a blues bar. The only songs I would recommend are "I Can't Read", which is a solid song with genuinely interesting instrumentation reminiscent of Sonic Youth, and "Baby Universal", which has the strongest melody of all the Tin Machine tracks. It gets much better after this!

Bowie in Total 2: The Return of the Thin White Duke or It's Not the Side-effects of the Cocaine

We are now moving into the beginning of Bowie's full-on cocaine phase as well as its aftermath. Some of his boldest and most misunderstood music came from this period. The centrepiece is the so-called "Berlin Trilogy", only one of which was recorded in Berlin after Bowie went clean. Most of these albums have Bowie's longest lasting backing band of rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis, who followed Bowie into funkier, more rhythmically complex territory.

Diamond Dogs (1974)

This was Bowie's first album after firing his Spiders from Mars backing band as only keyboardist Mike Garson remained. As such, Bowie played most of the instruments himself, giving the record a rougher, slightly unfinished sound. Bowie did deliver some of the best guitar playing of his career, from the incredible riff of the immortal "Rebel Rebel" to the thrashing outtro of "Sweet Thing (Reprise)". The album was originally intended as a full-length reenactment of George Orwell's 1984 but due to issues with Orwell's estate, the concept ended up being shifted into something more Bowie-esque, which I think was for the benefit of the album. This is the Bowie album I remember hearing most when I was young. The spoken-word intro "Future Legend" outlines his unique dystopian concept using a heavily processed vocal technique that reappears throughout the album. Overall, this album used more electronics and post-production techniques than its predecessors. The songs are almost uniformly excellent, with the sole exception of the questionable "Rock 'n' Roll with Me", the only song on the album not solely written by Bowie. The album has the same dystopian, futuristic darkness that is common to The Man Who Sold the World, Scary Monsters, and Outside, which are some of my favorite Bowie albums. My favorite tracks are the title track, a strong rocker with intense cowbell and the great opening line of "This ain't rock and roll, this is genocide", as well as "Big Brother", one of the few 1984-specific songs on the album, which has a very powerful chorus and outtro and hints at some of the experiments of future albums.

Young Americans (1975)

Bowie's attempt at what he called "plastic soul" is an album that was new to me until recently. It is not one of my favorites but I can definitely see its merits, particularly in terms of lyrics and songwriting. With only eight songs, one of which is a cover and two of which are co-written, this album has the least original Bowie content of any of his proper albums up to this point. Bowie's vocals show major development here but also shows a move away from the high-pitched yelp of the Ziggy albums to a deeper croon that is closer to Bryan Ferry or Scott Walker. A young Luther Vandross contributed backing vocals and arrangements to the album while John Lennon co-wrote and played on the album's hit "Fame". Bowie also covers the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" with very limited success on this album. Overall, the album is an interesting one-off experiment but certainly not an essential part of Bowie's catalogue. This album can also be seen as a precursor to some of Bowie's worst material from the 1980s. My favorite tracks are the title track, which has an excellent, complex arrangement, a great melody and solid lyrics, as well as "Somebody Up There Likes Me" which is a powerful and affecting ballad.

Station to Station (1976)

One of my absolute favorite Bowie albums and a massive leap forward creatively for him and his band as he entered his "Thin White Duke" phase. This album sees the late 70s band firmly in place along with some excellent guitar work from Earl Slick, who is still working with Bowie today. Bowie and his band were deep into the cocaine at this point and Bowie claims to remember nothing of the album's recording sessions, contributing to the often vague and obtuse lyrics. Despite this, Station to Station has some of the best musicianship and songwriting of Bowie's career. "Golden Years" and "TVC 15" from this album are two of Bowie's catchiest songs (I think I first heard "Golden Years" in an American Express commercial). My picks for this album are the title track, which is ten minutes of pure greatness, as well as "Stay", which fuses hard rock and funk to great effect and has one of Bowie's best vocals.

Low (1977)

The beginning of Bowie's so-called Berlin Trilogy as well as his first collaboration with Brian Eno, Low sees Bowie diving in head first into electronic and experimental music. In addition, the influence of German artists like Can and Neu! is evident when listening to this record. This album has a completely unique sound and deserves a listen in the highest-quality form possible. Guitarist Ricky Gardner, who only played on the one Bowie album, produces an amazing phasing, driving guitar tone that gives momentum to the fractured pop songs of the album's first side. The lyrics on this album have a dark and somewhat empty feeling, reflecting Bowie's mood after giving up cocaine. Despite the challenging nature of the material, Bowie still managed a hit with "Sound and Vision", a song whose pop structure disguises one of the most intricate and progressive arrangements ever heard. This album is known for being hugely influential and the influence of "Subterraneans" on Nine Inch Nails is obvious. The instrumental tracks of the second side are more challenging than the first side but no less enthralling. Brian Eno's contributions to this album are often overstated but "Art Decade" sounds very much like one of the instrumentals on Eno's "Another Green World." My favorites from this album are "Breaking Glass" for its insane rhythm and great guitar riff and "Warszawa" for its mournful sound and plaintive vocal.

"Heroes" (1977)

A continuation of the ideas from Low, this album in nonetheless very different from its predecessor. Both more uplifting and crazier, there is huge variation from one song to another on this album. The iconic cover image was reappropriated for 2013s The Next Day cover. Robert Fripp of King Crimson played much of the guitar on the album and his work heavily contributes to the general wildness, especially on the track "Blackout" which sounds like it's about to fall apart completely at any moment. Bowie's vocals are wilder and listening to the album now, I can see how his vocals were a huge influence on The Cure's mid-80s material. To me, the instrumentals that make up this album are not quite as strong as those on Low but the vocal songs are more fully formed and memorable. The title track is one of Bowie's most enduring and best loved songs and anchors much of the record with its huge vocal and melody. My picks are the title track, of course, as well as "Joe the Lion", which fuses all the best elements of Bowie's divergent styles at the time.

Lodger (1979)

A shorter and more song-oriented album compared to its predecessors, this album is often neglected by Bowie enthusiasts despite its many excellent songs and particularly great artwork. While this album is considered the last album of the "Berlin Trilogy", it is not recorded in Germany, nor does it have the instrumentals that figured prominently in the previous two albums. Guitar on this album is provided by Adrian Belew, who previously toured with Bowie and would go on to play with the Talking Heads as well as becoming the frontman for King Crimson. An excellent player, he holds much of the album together with his unique style. At times, especially with songs like "Yassassin", this record is very similar to what the Talking Heads were doing around the same time. Despite the great songwriting, this album didn't manage to spawn any real hits. One issue with the album is that most of the best songs are on the second side. My two favorites, both from the second side, are "Look Back in Anger" which is powerful and anthemic with a strong groove and "Repetition" which joins a strange and unsettling rhythm to disturbingly real lyrics about male privilege and domestic abuse.

Stay tuned for my next installment where things start well but get very ugly!

Bowie in Total: Before and After Ziggy

I recently saw the David Bowie exhibit at the AGO, which was very illuminating and inspired me to start this project. I listened to every Bowie album produced and tracked his progress from one album to another. What I found was the greatest discography of any musician I have ever heard and reinforced my opinion that Bowie is the greatest artist of any kind of the last hundred years. His catalogue is startlingly original and fairly consistent, save for a ten year period of awfulness from 1983 until 1993. Even this awfulness is illuminating as it is some of the worst music ever produced by a talented artist. For sake of readability, I will break this analysis up into sections.

David Bowie (1967)

This is an interesting debut, largely indebted to English folk with little of the daring or edgyness that would characterize his later work. It is miles away from the daring English rock from the time that he would end up covering on Pinups. Still, the songwriting is fairly strong and it is quite polished for a debut, not surprising since he had been in music for years prior to this album. Overall, a good but not especially memorable debut. The song "Uncle Arthur" is excellent, but the best songs are on the bonus disc such as "The London Boys" and the sublimely ridiculous "The Laughing Gnome".

Space Oddity aka David Bowie (1969)

The impact of the title track diminishes the importance of the rest of the album. Bowie is beginning to make a transition both away from folk to more ornate arrangements as well as a move towards the themes of science fiction and mental illness that become prominent in his work soon after. Generally a solid album but somewhat inessential except for a few tracks. The title track and "The Cygnet Committee" are both excellent, while the rerecording of "Memory of a Free Festival" on the bonus disc featuring the early incarnation of the Spiders from Mars stands out as one of his best songs.

The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

This album represents his biggest leap forward and still stands up as one of the best albums amongst many other great albums. Bowie's trademark piercing wail is fairly well developed by this point. Bowie and his backing band of guitarist Mick Ronson, producer/bassist Tony Visconti and drummer Mick Woodmansey create a daring hybrid of cutting-edge hard rock and freakish folk. The twin themes of dystopian futurism and insanity come to the forefront of this album, both musically and lyrically. "Saviour Machine" tells a Terminator-esque story of a sentient computer tasked with running the world who, in it's boredom, contemplates annihilating humanity. "All the Madmen" looks at the treatment of mental illness from an ambivalent and disoriented perspective. "Running Gun Blues" is the first of Bowie's aggressive anti-war statements that have continued to 2013s "I'd Rather Be High". "She Shook Me Cold" is a surprisingly effective evocation of Jimi Hendrix's style that highlights Ronson's guitar mastery. While I can't say if it's one of Bowie's very best albums, it is definitely close to being my favorite. The standout tracks of this record are hard to pick but the hard rock epic "The Width of a Circle" and the psychedelic madness of "After All" particularly stand out.

Hunky Dory (1971)

The precursor to Ziggy Stardust has many of the folk and psychedelic elements of Bowie's earlier work but adds a large element of cabaret to the mix. While Mick Ronson also plays on this album, his distinctive than on its predecessor and successor. Instead, the most prominent instrument is the piano, played by Rick Wakeman from Yes. Wakeman's work on this album is not nearly as showy as with Yes but is the driving force of songs like "Life on Mars". This album also has Bowie temporarily (for four albums) suspending his long relationship with producer Tony Visconti. The cabaret elements can be overpowering at times but the songwriting is excellent, perhaps Bowie's best up to this point save for "Kooks" and "Song for Bob Dylan" which are too derivative and simplistic to make much of an impression. My favorite songs from this album are, of course, "Life on Mars" which has largess and drama to spare as well as "Queen Bitch" which is the clearest antecedent to Ziggy Stardust and is a generally appealing rocker and finally "The Bewlay Brothers", a powerful though inscrutable epic with a distinctive and very cool string sound.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

This is one of Bowie's most loved albums as well as his most famous alter-ego. This album defined the glam rock movement both in concept and execution. The concept of an alien rock star on a pre-apocalyptic Earth is interesting though not particularly well-developed, especially compared to later concept album Outside. The songs are uniformly thrilling though. Sonically, the album is a mix of acoustic wanderings and electric intensity. "Hang on to Yourself" and "Suffragette City" are particularly driving. The impending doom of "Five Years" is reminiscent of the menace of The Man Who Sold the World with a new, more polished sound. "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" is the ultimate breaking up the band, while emphasizing the optimism before the end with the chant of "you're not alone!" Starman, with its striking arrangement and catchy chorus, became one of Bowie's biggest hits up to this point. My only complaint about the record is that it doesn't rock nearly as hard as the live albums Live in Santa Monica and Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture. My favorites on this album are "Moonage Daydream" for its excellent progression and awesome coda as well as "Hang on to Yourself" for its sheer speed and intensity.

Aladdin Sane (1973)

The final proper album of the Spiders from Mars line-up sees Bowie and company fusing the cabaret elements of Hunky Dory with hard-driving rock of Ziggy's more intense songs. We also find Bowie's saxophone playing becoming more prominent, an element that is increasingly important to later albums. Piano wizard Mike Garson joins the band at this point, adding his virtuosic skills to songs like "Time" and "Lady Grinning Soul". Garson adds a new sense of fullness to the band's sound that makes this one of Bowie's most sonically-pleasing albums. Bowie's vocals rise to the occasion, showing a previously undeveloped strength. Songs like "Time" and "Cracked Actor" (which would make a great theme song for Toronto's mayor) add a level of sexual explicitness to his lyrics that must have been unheard of at the time. My favorite songs on this album are "Aladdin Sane" which sees him revisiting the theme of mental illness with one of his most complex arrangements, getting close to the free jazz sound of Outside, as well as "Panic in Detroit" which matches one of the best intros of all time with an equally awesome song and lyric.

Pin Ups (1973)

Bowie, in typically idiosyncratic fashion, caps off the Ziggy era with a covers album of songs from 1964-1967 Britain that influenced him. This album was the only one from this era that was new to me and it was a very pleasant surprise. The remaining Spiders put in some of their strongest performances while the songs range from the very familiar to fairly obscure. Bowie's respect for Ray Davies is made clear by having Davies' lyrics to the Kinks song "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" as the only printed lyrics on the package. Both the Yardbirds and the Who are represented twice on the album. The strongest tracks are a slowed-down version of the Who's "I Can't Explain" and a soulful version of the Mersey's "Sorrow".

Yeezus Tour Concert Report

Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar at the Air Canada Centre Dec 12 and 13

Mountains, Jesus, fire and a special appearance by Drake made the final two nights of the Yeezus tour strange and spectacular. As I've mentioned before, Yeezus is one of my favorite albums of the year and I was excited to see how Kanye would translate the abrasive and alienating album live but past experiences with live hip hop had been hit and miss. Live hip hop can be problematic due to a heavy reliance on backing tracks as well as the difficulty in understanding lyrics for a storytelling-focused medium. Both artists dispelled some but not all of these negative preconceptions. I did my best to avoid too much press about the tour beforehand so that I would be going in to the concert relatively fresh, though I had heard about several of the elements of the show. Kanye's set was divided into five sections, titled "Fighting", "Rising", "Falling", "Searching" and "Finding". The songs and staging during these sections were connected to these titles. While I saw both nights of the tour, the set was largely the same, with some small changes, as he played many of his best songs over close to two and a half hours.

Kendrick Lamar opened with a powerful set that highlighted his strong rap skills. He was backed by a heavy rock band that gave all of his tracks a more aggressive edge. He played for over forty minutes, covering all his best tracks. Unfortunately, his excellent lyrics were rendered mainly unintelligible by the overly bass-heavy sound mixing. Surprisingly, the crowd knew the lyrics to almost all of the songs he played. The crowd responded best to "Swimming Pools" and "Backseat Freestyle". Videos projected behind him helped to reinforce many of the themes and concepts of his music.

While Kendrick was preceded by a selection of classic hip hop tracks over the P.A., Kanye was preceded by dark, droning electronic instrumentals. It was already clear from this that he was not going to have a typical hip hop show. The mountain was unveiled and a robotic female voice announced the name of the first section, "Falling", followed by a definition of sorts of the word. This was followed by the disjointed electronic intro of "On Sight".

From the first track onward, Kanye performed significantly altered versions of his tracks. For the most part, this enhanced the songs, though I felt that "Power" would have been more effective in its original form. He was backed up by a D.J., singer Tony Williams as well as guitarist and frequent collaborator Mike Dean. He played songs from all of his album, with Yeezus being played in its entirety. Oddly, Late Registration was completely ignored during the second show, with only "Diamonds Are Forever" played at the first show. The songs from the G.O.O.D. Music compilation seemed much better outside of that uneven album. "Cold" with its Foreigner-sampling intro was especially good. As I guessed would be the case, all of the tracks were heavily reliant on prerecorded elements though that didn't diminish the performance as much as I thought it would.

The staging of the show was very impressive though the overall concept was not entirely clear. It was only by the second show that I realized that the five words and definitions on-screen represented divisions of the show, a realization that clarified the concept somewhat. A red-eyed monster stalked the stage and the mountain for a large chunk of the show, seemingly looming over Kanye. A group of women, either wearing robes or skin-coloured bodysuits sauntered around the stage during many tracks performing several functions. They laid down in a circle around Kanye as he sang, they walked out of the opened mountain in an Orthodox Christian procession, they performed very subdued dance moves and finally held up flares during "All of the Lights". Finally, Jesus came out to anoint Kanye for "Jesus Walks", an odd and surreal moment.

A highlight (or lowlight, depending on your perspective) of both shows were his rants or "visionary streams of consciousness". During both shows, he delivered his views on life, himself and the music industry for about fifteen minutes per show, interspersed with auto-tuned singing. I found the second one more entertaining than the first but they were both fascinating and exhausting. During the second show, after about fifteen minutes of ranting, a section of the crowd began to chant "wrap it up!" Some choice quotes were "F*** you with the love" directed to the Grammys as well as "I am the worlds crazy cousin just out of prison".

During the second show, as he seemed to be wrapping up, he brought out Drake to perform briefly. They performed two Drake songs, "Forever" and "All Me". Normally I'm not a huge Drake fan but Kanye must have brought out the best in him as he performed skillfully, including an impressive section of a capella rapping. The finale for both shows included exuberant, crowd-pleasing renditions of "All of the Lights" and "Good Life" followed by the natural closer "Bound 2" as well as a short outtro replaying the interlude from "On Site" with Jesus on top of the mountain, standing below a video of sun coming through a cloudy sky. It was a triumphant and slightly confusing finale for a stunning show.

My Bloody Valentine Concert Report

My Bloody Valentine at the Koolhaus November 5

Last night, My Bloody Valentine made their mostly triumphant return to Toronto to a subdued but reverent crowd. This was their first show here since 2008 and only their second in the last twenty years. They are belatedly touring their excellent album MBV that came out early this year though only four tracks from that album were played. I suspect that this is because the band hasn't learned these new songs as the album was largely assembled by bandleader Kevin Shields whose guitar sounds are still the best and most innovative.

Earplugs were handed out at the door and proved to be very necessary as this was the loudest concert I have ever seen by a large margin. The earplugs likely contributed to the subdued crowd since it sounds quite odd to applaud loudly while wearing earplugs. The band played for over an hour and a half, offering a solid representation of their catalogue, including a number of non-album tracks. The album Loveless was the most represented, with seven songs from it played.

Opening song "Sometimes" is one of their mellower songs and was used to great effect in the film Lost in Translation. The song offered little indication of the onslaught to come. The new track "New You" was an early highlight with excellent singing from Belinda Butcher and some superb tremolo-laden guitar from Shields. Overall, the vocals were much stronger than I expected, having heard several of their bootlegs where the vocals were almost entirely inaudible. "Honey Power" was an excellent showcase of Colm O'Ciosoig's Keith Moon-like drumming skills and a good representation of their heavier side.. An attempt to play early b-side "Thorn" was a huge failure with three aborted attempts leading to them giving up on the song entirely. "Wonder 2" with looped jungle-ish drums and helicopter guitar was very impressive. "Only Shallow" was good but sounded a bit odd. Their signature song "Soon" was perfect, especially with its trance-like ending.

All this was lead up to their standard finale "You Made Me Realise", their first proper single which has now been extended with a ten minute noise interlude. This mammoth wall of sound emphasized the physicality of the band, with earthquake-like pulsations creating a unique tactile experience unlike anything I've ever experienced in a concert. When the band suddenly returned to the main song, there was a palpable feeling of release.

My Bloody Valentine produce a full sensory experience unlike any other band. Their psychedelic projections aided in the immersion. They combine consummate professionalism and amateurish anarchy in a completely unique way.  More than any other band I've seen, My Bloody Valentine in concert provide something that cannot be captured or represented in any other form.