Tuesday night it was The New Pornographers. I had been on the fence about bothering to go, even though I had a freebie to get in courtesy of opener Immaculate Machine who I must confess I missed but who have a lovely name and are Canadian so really, everyone go see them now, you hear? Anyway it is my birthday this week and I have a lot of cake to eat and champagne baths to take so I was feeling a bit overwhelmed but why should that stop me? I mean, it never has in the past. So at 9:30 I found myself walking into the club. While in line I heard a security guard say into his walkie talkie "Can you tell me the name of the band that is on and playing right now?" after a brief silence a voice called back from the other end "Pornography". But of course Pornography was not playing, the band on stage was in fact Destroyer, fronted by Dan Bejar who although was once one with the Pornographers, appears to be less so now. From the look of it, we can guess that the break was a result of Bejar's desire to become a filthy hippie, which he appears to be, and thus making him unsuitable company for the geekishy clean-teen (and thus quite ironically named) Pornographers. It only took me about 1 minute and 22 seconds to decide that I was not interested in Destroyer. I find Bejar's voice a bad match for the music his band outputs and as my lovely co-attendant Kathy so succinctly put it "Not one of them is cute." Hey sister, you've hit that on the nose. We quickly adjourned upstairs to have cocktails and try to ignore their set, which did sound better once I ceased looking at them, but even with this upgrade in sound I never was compelled to get off the sofa I was sitting on to get any closer to the action. This band should call me after they make friends with a Flowbee, then I'll give them another shot.
The New Pornographers however were entirely delightful tonight, plowing through songs from releases both old and new and encoring with a very special "Letter from an Occupant" which made my heart go pitty-pat. There are an obscene number of people in this band now - 7 to be exact - which made me think it's a good thing the venue had a decent size stage or half the band would have to play from the audience. Regardless, maybe it is their size that explains why live the Pornographers totally rock out. This isn't to say I'm not a fan of the band on record, but live the drums are pounding and guitars blasting. If I close my eyes I can even imagine all of them aren't freshly bathed and wearing practical shoes, I mean, for pornographers, they are awfully tidy. I guess that is what its like when you're a Canadian Pornographer. There was an obscene amount of tambourine playing tonight by both the silver voiced Neko Case and by a 2nd female keyboardist who was wearing a lovely Chococat sweater (but who does not appear in recent band photos so who is she?). I am guessing the men in this band found out that the tambourine is not a real instrument, unless it is attached to a drum kit or you make your living as a gypsy or belly dancer. Luckily this info has not been transmitted to these ladies who really did their best to be professional in their tambourine duties, with Case actually sporting a quite high end white number with double cymbals on it. I tell you, Davy Jones has nothing on her.
