The Electric Owl
Vancouver, British Columbia
I battled for the better part of the last month over whether I should have gotten tanked with a bunch of friends and seen Vancouver's Five Alarm Funk during their Rock the Sky album release or seen Brooklyn's quite antithetically lo-fi, washed out Beach Fossils by myself and in all likelihood sober. Naturally, solitary tendencies aside, I chose to see Beach Fossils, mainly because a few days prior to the show, I read that Seattle's Seapony, one of my favourite bands, were opening. Not to take anything away from Five Alarm Funk, whom I'm sure were nothing short of fucking amazing, but I'm preeettyyy sure I made the right decision for me, even though Beach Fossils with Seapony wasn't exactly the dreamy, feel-good, sway-to-the-music evening I'd expected.
Unlike the first (and only) time I saw Seapony, when they played their songs pretty much the way the songs appeared on record, at the Electric Owl, Seapony rocked their songs the fuck up with solos, tremolos and faster tempos; save for maybe a couple of songs, Seapony certainly weren't as sentimental as usual. In another change of pace, just slightly more than half of Seapony's set included new songs, surprisingly leaving no room for their usual closer, a cover of the Field Mice's "Emma's House," despite Rose Melberg's presence (I saw her hanging around the bar with the band before the show). Also conspicuously absent from Seapony's set was "Always." I don't know what they have against that song, but once again, it didn't make the set. Will I ever get to hear "Always," the song that got me into Seapony, live?
Next was another surprisingly rocking band, Vancouver's Student Teacher. And not only were Student Teacher, of whom I'd never heard, surprisingly rocking: they were rocking period. How was Student Teacher surprisingly rocking, if I'd never heard of them before? Because judging by lead Student Teacher Daniel's (I can't find his last name anywhere on the 'Net) unassuming demeanor when he asked me before the show if I was in a San Fransisco shoegaze band called Permanent Collection, (well, I definitely see the resemblance between myself and Jason Henhardy .....), I did not think the utter anarchic sonic destruction that spewed from his quartet could have emanated from someone like him; never judge a book by its cover, as the age old adage goes. Ignorant me. Indeed, Student Teacher was the most melodically discordant force I'd heard since Sonic Youth - such control, although the only thing over which Student Teacher didn't have control was volume. The band was so damned picky about volume. They must have asked for more volume on the guitars and vocals and then less volume on the guitars after every song. They're lucky they're so damned good that they can afford to be so picky.
And finally, there were Beach Fossils. Usually, opening acts don't get to "outshine" headliners in terms of volume, and I didn't think loudness befitted Beach Fossils anyway, so I thought, "There's no way Beach Fossils are going to be louder than Student Teacher." And I was correct. Even though Beach Fossils were leaps and bounds beyond how fast and furious I thought they would have been, they still couldn't touch the sheer blistering volume of Student Teacher.
On record, it wouldn't be a far cry to call Beach Fossils intimate bedroom pop with a grainy texture like the damp remains of sifted detritus. Live, however, they are just an energetic indie rock band - straight-up. No bollocks. "You guys can move around more; it's okay," frontperson Dustin Payseur politely yet playfully encouraged the audience before launching into another jumpy, rousing version of a song from their self-titled debut album (their only full-length to date), swaying, spinning and kicking in jolty, erratic movements. The band rocked with such abandon that the members stumbled into each other and their equipment, specifically birthday boy Tommy Gardner's drum set. There were a few moments when I thought John Pena was going to scrape off my face with the head of his bass (which was tuned so sharply, it sounded like a third guitar) while he was spinning around onstage. Even though Beach Fossils seemed to have missed a lot of notes here and there, the energy they brought more than made up for it.
So, I didn't get the show I expected, but every part of it was great. Okay, as usual, I do have at least one minor complaint: Both Student Teacher and Beach Fossils stopped at least one song because they screwed up. In all the shows I've seen, this was the only time I could ever remember a band restarting a song. It doesn't seem particularly rock 'n' roll to restart a song instead of just covering or rolling with the mistake. But then, "I'm not a musician or performer, so what do I know?" Right?
Closing note: I bring elastic bands to shows now. It just makes snatching and carrying set lists easier. How rock 'n' roll is that? And here I am complaining about bands restarting songs. And I brought exactly enough elastic bands to Beach Fossils/Seapony/Student Teacher: two. I'm two-for-two for Seapony set lists. My set list wall just grows and grows with every show. ROCK! \m/
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