Broken Social Scene @ Orpheum

You know when you actually feel music, rather than hear it? Or watch it, in the case of Broken Social Scene and its umpteen number of musicians carousing about the stage with every performance. This band is a reminder why not all of us can do for a living what it is these people do, and why the rest of us need to take communication classes. Human Emotions 101.



Last night the seven remaining Scene members took the Orpheum stage downtown to celebrate the release of lead vocalist Kevin Drift's "solo" album, titled "Spirit If..." The family of this group is so strong that the album's attribution could not even bare to shed a single word, "The Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew."

If were are to learn a thing or two, we would see that it is about connection with these guys. After performing "Cause=Time" ("This is a mouth that needs religion"), Drew demanded that all audience member stand. I greatly understood the urgency behind this request and the message that an entirely standing audience may send (read: harmony), but both I and my designated driver had previously spent close to an hour circling Little Tokyo on foot, trying to find a grocery store that cashed personal checks. (With no avail it would come to you too as a brand new low when homeless ask for change and quite literally you are two seconds away from asking them for cab fare.)

Kevin Drew would grade you on sharing. Sharing things and sharing people. Things: at one point Drew offered his water bottle to a dehydrated looking fan toward the front. People: Andrew King from American Analog Set stepped in on guitar, and James (Jimmy) Shaw from Metric was covering for someone's broken collar bone.

Kevin Drew would grade you on togetherness. When Scene vet Emily Haines made a surprise cameo for "Anthem of a Seventeen Year old Girl"(everyone as standing at this point and I am so glad i wore flats), the energy actually shifted. It more or less opened up and swallowed everybody. Imagine seeing this woman on stage bounce to visit some of her closest friends, and imagine seeing from your back row seat the happiest smile on eight people's faces.

If you're still with me on this, Kevin Drew gives you an 'A.'

Late To The Party, Early On the Bandwagon

[live performance review by J. Cortez]



It's a curious thing to be an opening act. Frequently, such performers are met with indifference by an anxious crowd as the artists on stage try their best to leave a lasting impression. Rare is the occasion when such a band is able to rise above and turn apathy into adulation. Rarer still is the opening act that realizes such an attempt is almost futile and just says, "Fuck it."

There was little fanfare as Crystal Castles took the stage at the Fonda this past Friday, opening for established indie rockers Metric. The curtains rose and the speakers droned a manic beat. What followed amounted to what felt like ten minutes of pure noodling on a small keyboard by one of the members, while a bright light pulsated from the stage floor. When the jams finally kicked in and the vocalist took the mic, noise transitioned into nuanced noise, very loud nuanced noise. No introduction was given, the audience was never once addressed, the lyrics were indecipherable (and it wasn't just the P.A. system) and their stage presence was solely represented by the blinding, flickering pulse of the strobe. Like a beating in the dark, their set was visceral and violent, leaving everyone traumatized but uncertain of what had just been encountered.

I was anxious to learn more about this band and when a Google search turned up a MySpace page, it was a little reassuring to find their web presence was consistent with their stage show. Castles seems to be playing by similar rules of anti-fame as Bay Area iconoclasts The Residents. Their presence isn't as masked, but there is the feeling when listening to the music that they are creating music not for any audience in particular, but rather for themselves. This then begs the question: why even perform for an audience if there is no apparent attempt to make a connection with the public?

In their case, the effect of doing so somehow brought everyone together in a flurry of confusion -- we may not have liked or understood what we saw or heard, but one thing was sure: we had witnessed. It was riveting, almost awe inspiring to see a band so involved in their own performance that the concerns of whether or not the audience enjoyed themselves mattered little if at all.




For more on Crystal Castles, visit:

http://www.myspace.com/crystalcastles