It was Sunday night at Canes and indie rock heroes Wolf Parade were about to perform, yet the crowd didn’t seem excited at all. The stripped down guitar and tribal trashcan percussion of opening duo Listening Party had been received with polite but moderate enthusiasm by an audience where those wearing backwards hats and polo shirts vastly outnumbered the people with the tight jeans and flat-ironed hair. As the crowd quietly milled about the venue between sets, it seemed as though Wolf Parade could expect a similarly tepid reaction. But when the Montreal quintet finally took the stage and the first notes rang out from the amps, they were met with a fanatical and frenzied reception that was anything but lukewarm.
Beginning their set with “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son†and “Soldier’s Grinâ€, the opening tracks off 2005’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and 2008’s At Mount Zoomer, respectively, Wolf Parade were a well-oiled machine, nimbly maneuvering their songs’ wild mood swings and ever-changing time signatures without missing a beat.
The Dark Knight is 150 minutes of intensity—a well-done action film that, unlike Batman Begins, focuses less on character and more on the ca-razee Joker (played by a nearly scenery-chewing Heath Ledger) and Batman’s quest to stop him.
Saturday’s “Hipsters Revisited†at Bar Pink Elephant was a ‘60s themed event that promised music of the garage, psychedelic, and freakbeat varieties, all while making assurances that there would be “no weird shit or flutesâ€. They made good on these promises with some trippy mood-lighting and an assortment of DJs spinning appropriately obscure tracks from the period, but the real draw was a live performance by local retro-rock band The Loons.
Long blond hair hanging in his face, Loons lead singer Mike Stax commanded the stage with all the raw power of an anachronistic Iggy Pop as the band blazed through a set that recalled garage acts Love, The Sonics, and The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. After grabbing everyone’s attention with “Red Dissolving Raysâ€, Stax joked that, in honor of Gay Pride week, he was dedicating the song “My Time†to Texas, “the gayest state of allâ€.
The trumpets heralding the release of Black Kids’ debut began blowing a year ago, when the Jacksonville band made their demo EP, Wizard Of Ahhhs, available for free download.
The EP was a rollicking good time – the perfect soundtrack to every out-of-hand house party or ill-advised hookup you’re looking forward to regretting – and they instantly became one of indie rock’s greatest Internet success stories, but it remained to be seen whether Black Kids could maintain their danceable intensity for more than four songs at a time. How well the band’s scrappy energy would be conveyed in a professional recording was also unknown, so it is under no shortage of pressure that Partie Traumatic arrives, the rare case of a debut album trying to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
