Ladyhawk opened. They’re local. I think I have seen them before, but there’s something about them that doesn’t grab me and shake me around like a ragdoll exactly. They did have their moments though. I would keep an eye out for them. I need to see a full set maybe, as I missed the beginning strains of this one. There’s a bit of chaotic My Morning Jacket in them. And I do recall one of them stopping to say that, “We were born and raised right here…. In the Commodore.” Har har.





My, look how Wintersleep has grown. Now headlining their very own show at the Commodore, which sold out, no less, Wintersleep started early by giving a shout out to their Vancouver ‘roots.’ I mean, not that they’re from here, but rather, that they cut their touring teeth during extended Vancouver stays years back, playing barely-populated Media Club shows and learning to really dig the west coast. Singer Paul Murphy pointed out that some of the folks in the crowd that day could be counted as having been there from the beginning. Yes, yes I was. Narf!





Okay anyhow, clearly this was a set geared heavily towards the band’s latest release, Welcome to the Night Sky. While I apparently, after four years, haven’t quite mastered the art of writing show notes in the dark, I think said notes state that they opened with “Miasmal Smoke & The Yellow-Bellied Freaks,” which I think is correct if memory serves. Super cool song that sort of has a built-in intro of instrumental wonkiness, that suddenly falls off a cliff into a boisterous, hands-in-the-air lyrical tune. Also, joyfully for me, another new track, “Dead Letter & the Infinite Yes” was played third (when I was still allowed up in the media pit. Ah, closeness.).





“There’s a lot of you, isn’t there?,” Murphy observed, scanning the packed and attentive room after a small silence between songs. Certainly they have had their breakthrough to Canadian superstardom by way of singles and cool, unforgettable videos. As a result, their audience has changed demographics from the underground indie kids, to the college set. The indie kids are still around though, and a crowd is a crowd regardless. Surprisingly though, the whole room seems to spark up to join in for choruses and whatnot during every song (lots of cheers for first-album classic, "Orca."), so clearly they aren’t only there for the radio singles. Much as was observed last time they played at the Commodore (in an opening slot), they seem to not always take advantage of the large stage, but every now and then, Murphy will go for a leap-about, and bassist Mike Bigelow runs around in little manic circles on his side of the stage.





However, it’s the encore where they finally realized they have acres of space to move around, most notably realized by keys/handclaps/extra guitars/everything-man Jon Samuel, who spent the outro of favourite-encore song, “Nerves Normal, Breathe Normal,” jump-spinning about and clapping exuberantly. Now in the past, they have played this song mid-set instead of as an encore, and usually it consists of the song itself, along with a million-mile-long drum solo by Loel Campbell. Tonight was no different, although after Campbell was mostly through his spotlight moment, the entire band panned out the song for ages. I mean, ages. I hate to say it, but they might be going a little overboard with the outro, considering nothing really happens with it after, so my colleague and co-photographer friend pointed out the following evening, somewhere in the region of 114 big, deliberate, buzzy, feedbacky guitar thruummmms that ended the song without any huge payoff after said thrums. 114 is a little much, guys – the song absolutely killed with the rolling and interesting outro extended it to about 7 minutes, but approaching 10 is possibly excessive.





That said – they are brilliant musicians and engaging performers. It was definitely a great show. A lot of people I talked to claim it was the best they’d seen the band. I was a little more impressed by the last show they played here in the fall, however in hindsight, I realize the show might have been so stimulating due to a bit of location/audience frustration on the band’s part. Nothing like a bit of strife to fire up your showmanship skills, right?

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : March, 2008.