Grizzly Bear




Grizzly Bear Vogue Theatre, Vancouver, BC October 14 By Al Smith Before the release of 2009's Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear stood at a career watershed of sorts. Critical darlings without much mainstream success, they could very well have continued in the direction set with 2007's Friend EP and become perennial indie overachievers, in the vein of the Liars, for example. Instead, they took a chance in reinventing themselves and knocked it out of the park with Veckatimest, the kind of album that's just as likely to show up on your dad's iPod as on yours. Extending their signature reverb- and harmony-soaked chamber folk into a songwriting tour de force, the album vastly improved on their already impressive output. What remained to be seen, though, was whether Grizzly Bear could reproduce the complex textures of Veckatimest in a live setting. The answer is "yes, they can," if you were wondering. At Vancouver's Vogue Theatre, the first thing that jumped out was the band's crackling musicianship: main vocalists Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen were flawless, and drummer Christopher Bear is far more accomplished than Grizzly Bear's recorded output suggests. Multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor — tasked with reproducing Veckatimest's orchestral arrangements in addition to laying down his distinctive bass lines — played a flute and a clarinet into a looping device, deftly spinning musical lines into an imaginary orchestra that brought to mind Owen Pallett's Final Fantasy. The show opened with the expansive, suite-like "Southern Point," which recalls Benjamin Britten's arrangements of English folk songs in its updating of classic folk tropes. The band proceeded to play most of Veckatimest, along with a selection of earlier work, finishing with their signature cover, a chilling rendition of the Carole King's "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)." An impressive light show complemented the Vogue Theatre's creaky ambiance, and although the mix wasn't perfect (the Vogue was originally a movie theatre, and its acoustics aren't ideal), the performance was enthralling, a joyous escape from Vancouver's impending rainy season.

The Manvils / The British Columbians / The Capitals The Venue stills feels like a tacky dance club. But with big-name acts filtering in, the new room seemed like a fitting place to showcase one of Vancouver's most promising up-and-coming live acts, the Manvils. Fronted by the jovial and boisterous lead singer/guitarist Mikey Manville, ...Read More

Anti-Pop Consortium
Brasstronaut / An Horse
Butthole Surfers / Psychic Ills
Echo & the Bunnymen
Elliott Brood / The Wooden Sky
Every Time I Die / Bring Me the Horizon / Architects
Gaslight Anthem / Murder By Death / Jesse Malin / Broadway Calls
Islands
Jay-Z / N.E.R.D. / Wale
Kylie Minogue
Mirah / Norfolk and Western
Obituary / Goatwhore / Krisiun / The Berzerker / Warbringer
Porcupine Tree / King's X
Rain Machine / Sharon Van Etten
The Scenics / The Big Bend
School of Seven Bells / The Depreciation Guild
Sufjan Stevens
Wavves / Little Girls / Ganglians / Tonstartssbandht


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