Les Savy Fav with Handsome Furs, Pt. 2 Or This Is Everything I Love About Live Music

July 22, 2011
The Rickshaw Theatre
Vancouver, British Columbia

Anyone who has talked to me about music likely knows that Japanther is one of my favourite bands of all time. Anyone who has talked to me about concerts probably knows that Japanther was the best concert I've ever seen besides the two times I saw the White Stripes. It should say something about Les Savy Fav's show two Friday nights ago then when I say: Japanther can kiss my ass!

Wow. I never thought I'd say that, especially about a band I actually like less than Japanther. But credit is given where credit is due: Les Savy Fav was hands down, unequivocally, no questions asked, indisputably the best, the craziest, the MOST FUN show I've ever seen (besides my candy-coloured heroes the White Stripes, of course, although I wouldn't call their shows "crazy").

The show began with the band tuning up for a minute or two onstage. Conspicuously absent, however, was lead-singer Tim Harrington. Then, all of a sudden, a couple of water bottles flew from backstage, followed shortly by a blonde wig. Oh, boy. This show was already getting weird and good.

When Tim finally did take the stage, he emerged wearing a sparkly reflective mask, sunglasses and a red-and-black cape. He also came out wielding a bunch of bananas. After having proclaimed how punk rock they were for having brought produce across the Canadian-American border, Tim proceeded to toss bananas into the crowd, personally feed some lucky concert-goers and have some equally lucky concert-goers feed him. Damn it. I was so close to the action.

Potassium!

Having gotten soaked with beer at Japanther, I knew it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened at Les Savy Fav; I just wondered how long it would take. Well, my answer came about three minutes into the show when Tim climbed on top of a large, rectangular, chest-height speaker in front of me and booted the beer cups and cans that were resting on top of it right in our faces and threw the rest into the crowd.

Soon afterwards, Tim lifted that same speaker with one arm pretty damned high, and with the help of several audience members in the front row, he hoisted it on top of another equal-sized speaker. When he returned to the stage after singing on top of the speaker, stage personnel struggled to gently set the speaker back down on the floor. Apparently, they weren't running on the same adrenaline as the rest of us there that night.

For Les Savy Fav, the stage was not a designated performance area: it was a launch-pad. Tim made literally every part of the Rickshaw Theatre his playground, and we were all invited to ride his merry-go-round for as long as we wanted. He sang in the audience, on top of the sound-technicians' booth and in the balcony. He even sang while swinging on a chain that was attached to the ceiling like a playground swing without a seat.

Swung from the gutters: lead-singer Tim Harrington swings from a chain attached to the ceiling.

As awesome as it was to watch Tim swing and sing - as awesome as it was to get as intimate and interactive with Tim as we wanted - the coolest part of the night came during the one-song encore. After a quick wardrobe change, Tim re-emerged for the encore wearing a rainbow feather suit and denim short-shorts. Most of the lights were off now, except for a few above the stage and a few far back in the balcony. During the song (which I admittedly did not recognize), Tim made his way into the middle of the floor. He beckoned everyone to move in for a group-hug during a slow part of the song, and on the first climactic confluence of bass, drums and guitars that picked the song back up, the entire audience, clustered in an embrace in the middle of the floor, EXPLODED in every direction like a million over-charged atoms, crashing into each other at light-speed; suddenly, there was so much space between everyone as we leapt feet into each other (before the encore, most of the moshing occurred at the front-and-centre area). It was also during the encore that Tim ascended into the balcony, took the large, single-bulbed light that was up there and swung it by its cord so that everyone in the Rickshaw Theatre was moshing in near darkness except for one swinging ceiling light.

As soon as I got home from the show, I went to take a shower, and I could already see and feel the welts forming on my knees, hips, shoulders, arms and back. Elbows and forearms ground into my back all night; I got crushed against the guardrail to the extent that I almost toppled over it a couple of times; I twisted my left ankle when I got shoved while my foot was wedged between some people's legs; and least pleasantly of all, I received a few knees to the groin, once when a guy seemingly reeled me in by the head. Thankfully, he threw the softest knee ever.

I hadn't been so uninhibited since Japanther and before that the White Stripes. I forgot how liberating it feels to lose myself in the middle of a mosh-pit, dancing and singing until I'm breathless and so tired, I'm limp but not crumpled or sprawled on the beer can-, beer cup-, beer-spattered floor only because bodies are crushing me against other bodies. There were a few moments at Les Savy Fav when I truly felt as if I was floating: at one point, I was caught off my feet while jumping and shuffled down a few people by moving bodies, like a piece of food that had been chewed up and was then being squeezed down an esophagus; I literally felt like I was gliding across the floor.

What also made Les Savy Fav great was that everyone knew the lyrics and danced their asses off, singing with each other and with Tim as loudly as we could. It was the second time I ever strained my voice at a show (the first was after the back-to-back White Stripes shows which basically rendered me voiceless for a couple of or few days). That was another thing I forgot: how great it felt to have been able to sing (shout) all the lyrics at the top of my lungs while jumping all over the place, running out of breath and not being able to finish the lines. I guess that's one reason why singers like Tim Harrington are so fond of sharing their mics with audience members, besides loving us so damned much: so they can catch their breaths. Lord knows you couldn't count the number of calories we in the audience burned that night, let alone Tim.

Unlike Fucked Up, who, like Les Savy Fav, are a lean, mean, hard-hitting, technically-sound beast of a band, Les Savy Fav weren't distorted at all. On the contrary: Les Savy Fav were so clear, I could hear every note and thus how technically sound every member was. Like Fucked Up though, Les Savy Fav was insaaanely interactive with their crowd. Hell, I said two days before Les Savy Fav that Fucked Up was the most interactive band I ever saw, but after Les Savy Fav, I have a new king. Although, out of the two coincidentally bald, hairy, bearded frontmen, Fucked Up's Damian Abraham seemed like the nicest guy on earth, whereas Tim Harrington was actually a bit intimidating. That was a bit surprising, as Damian screams a whole hell of a lot more than Tim does and is heavier-set and would thus seem like a more domineering presence.

I was concerned about my hearing after Fucked Up two nights before (my ears actually hurt a bit at Kurt Vile and Thurston Moore the night between Fucked Up and Les Savy Fav). Hell, I bought earplugs for the first time because I thought Les Savy Fav were going to finish me off. As soon as Les Savy Fav hit the stage though, I knew I wasn't going to be using my earplugs, and thank God I didn't: it wouldn’t have been half the show it was, if my ears were jammed with foam. Les Savy Fav were so good, I didn't even notice my auditory obliteration at their hands. But how could I have anyway when I was having one of the best times of my life?

Click here for more photos of Les Savy Fav live at the Rickshaw Theatre courtesy of the Snipe.


Addendum: I forgot to mention in my Handsome Furs review that I didn't find out that the venue for the show had changed from the Commodore Ballroom to the much smaller, much dodgier Rickshaw Theatre until I arrived at the former. I intentionally got to the Commodore later than I usually get to shows in order to cut down the wait-time, so I was a little frantic in trying to figure out the quickest route from the Commodore to the Rickshaw. As frustrating as that was, I completely forgot about it by the time Les Savy Fav were done because they were just so fucking good. The change of venue was completely for the best, anyway: the Rickshaw Theatre is always far more intimate than the Commodore Ballroom and probably laxer on security/safety regulations; I doubt there would have been much chain-swinging or light-spinning by the cord above the audience's heads at the Commodore. Indeed, the grungier venue was far more befitting of a hardcore show than the sleek, spacious Commodore Ballroom.