Wild Beasts (2/18/2010)
by Paul on March 1st, 2010
Spectacle has become such a significant part of the concert experience that it is almost surprising when a band, or at least a headliner, does without lights, video or antics. That isn’t to say that the music can’t carry a show; often bands don’t have enough confidence in their material to try this. For many artists, though, the stripped down and bare-bones approach better suits them. Upon listening to Wild Beasts, it would seem that they fall in between these two camps. Their songs certainly are good enough to hold an audience rapt for an entire set, but they also do lend themselves to the theatrical. For this reason, I wasn’t sure what the experience would be like at Schuba’s, a bar that doesn’t seem like it could hold the sheer grandeur of Wild Beasts’ sound. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised.
There was only one opening band: Toronto’s Still Life Still. Although they got off to a rough start and made some head-scratching moves (mic feedback, strange setlist order, doubling unison vocals), they managed to combine several influences that occasionally work well together. The most ready comparison would be Death Cab For Cutie, but with overdone dance-rock beats and sophomoric lyrics (yelling “I wish I could be serious”, for example), they lack the subtlety that made the original into indie and college rock superstars. The first half of their set was also seriously devoid of energy, even if the sounds they produced were nice and the high-tenor vocals were pretty. In the last couple of songs, though, they pulled out all of the stops and all of those detracting points were forgotten as nicely timed dynamic changes and emotional delivery appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Then their set ended just as the crowd was starting to pick up on that energy. Even though they’ve only released one album to date, they’ve been playing together for some time and their live show didn’t reflect their experience on this particular evening.
Then, Wild Beasts took the stage. Their 2009 effort Two Dancers was in my top 5 albums of last year and also did pretty well on our overall list, and this would be my first time seeing them so I was pretty excited. They did not disappoint. Opening with ‘The Fun Powder Plot’, it was obvious from the get-go that they had the same chops live that they display on record. Frontmen Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming had their falsettos in perfect order that evening, and even though the band was very reserved and never resorted to any of the spectacle mentioned above, the crowd bought into every second of it, myself included. Instead of relying on the success of Two Dancers and letting that dominate the setlist, they worked in at least 5 songs from debut Limbo, Panto and I was surprised to see that these drew just as strong of reactions from the crowd. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the performance was their skill level and dexterity. On record, the range of the vocals can be overpowering and impressive, and rightly so, but Fleming’s bass lines are brilliant and fairly tricky at times, and the percussion work of Chris Talbot was also spot-on. Ultimately, it is the interplay of the vocalists that is the band’s strength and calling card. For me, the highlights are the tracks led by Fleming, though making such a distinction doesn’t mean I sing along any less to those of Thorpe. Live, though, ‘All The King’s Men’ sent shivers down my spine, as did ‘This is Our Lot’. Overall, this was one of the more rewarding concert experiences I’ve had in a while and if you get a chance to see them whether on tour or at a festival, I couldn’t recommend them more.
Paul Bulow
Menomena