Les Savy Fav with Handsome Furs, Pt. 1

July 22, 2011
The Rickshaw Theatre
Vancouver, British Columbia

I'm going to talk about Handsome Furs separately from Les Savy Fav (for whom the Furs opened) because Les Savy Fav were in a complete league of their own.

Simply put, Handsome Furs were FUCKING LAME. They sounded good, but they only played songs from their newest album Sound Kapital (Sub Pop Records, 2011), so I didn't get to hear a single song I liked. The Furs also overdid it with their smoke machine which smelled terrible; it was the first time I could smell the dry ice from a smoke machine. Their lights, near-seizure-inducing as they were, were pretty good though.

Handsome Furs were way too histrionic for my liking. Alexei Perry, the female half of the band, collapsed to the floor after almost every song and writhed and kicked and kept pounding her chest in thanks of the audience. I've said before that I often love when a band thanks its audience profusely (well, maybe not profusely but at least when a band seems genuine in thanking its audience), but sometimes, no matter how genuine the band seems, its constant thanks just annoy me. Handsome Furs were one of the latter cases. Maybe it was because Handsome Furs' crowd didn't seem into them enough to warrant such over-the-top outpouring of gratitude, and I certainly wasn't going to be a single decibel over polite in my applause.

The worst part of Handsome Furs' set for me was when a guy in the audience shoved his way past me and hopped on stage. One of the security guards laxly grabbed the guy's ankle but let go after a second. The guy then started dancing and hopping and clapping and stamping like a madman all over the stage, getting pretty close to Alexei and her husband/bandmate Dan Boeckner. An awkward moment came when the guy helped Alexei to her feet after one of her "trademark" collapses and kissed her on the mouth (or did something questionable with his face right in hers). I guess he turned out to have been a friend of the band's or something, as he coolly walked backstage after the band finished its song, and he re-emerged with a shaker in hand for the rest of the Furs' set. In any case, the unofficial hype-man was a pain to watch, especially since I personally found nothing to be crazy about during Handsome Furs' performance.

The only kind of cool part of the Handsome Furs' show was that it was somewhat of a homecoming for them. As Dan said, he and Alexei started the band when they lived in downtown Vancouver years ago (Thurlow Street and somewhere). Alexei gave a shout-out to her dad, who was in the audience, and the band could be seen hugging and hanging out with friends and family members after the show by one of the bars.

To say I was extremely disappointed by Handsome Furs would be an understatement. I'd always really liked their first two albums Plague Park (Sub Pop Records, 2007) and Face Control (Sub Pop Records, 2009), and despite Sound Kapital, I was excited to see them; at least I'd get a chance to hear their songs I liked live, I thought. Oh, well. As much as I didn't care for Handsome Furs' show, I would have gladly endured two of their sets for what was to hit the stage (and floor - and sound booth - and balcony - and audience) after them that night at the Rickshaw Theatre. I'll leave that for my next concert review.

Click here for more photos of Handsome Furs live at the Rickshaw Theatre courtesy of the Snipe.