You can't accuse Said the Whale of not being one of the hardest working bands in Canada. They released their latest album, hawaiii, about a year and a half after the previous Little Mountain, and they have been almost constantly touring; criss-crossing Canada, down into the States, and even overseas.
But to wrap up their 2013, they have come back to Vancouver for a pair of hometown shows; an afternoon all ages show, and an evening 19+ (which I caught).

With them, they had a band that highly influenced them, By Divine Right to open the show. While I had seen the band once before, I mostly knew them more based on their legacy and reputation than their music, and the Toronto three piece definitely lived up to that.
The band lineup has rotated a lot throughout their twenty-plus years -- including musicians like Brendan Canning, Leslie Feist, and Brian Borcherdt -- and joining frontman José Miguel Contreras in their current lineup was drummer Geordie Dynes, and Alysha Haugen on bass.
Highlights from their set included the simple yet catchy "The Slap" and "Past The Stars", the first song from new album, Organized Accidents, introduced as about space aliens. Contreras swapped to an acoustic guitar for "Mutant Message", and got the crowd really going with their biggest hit, "Five Bucks". After jokingly ringing in the new year early, they ended with "Stella Ocean Heart"
They put on a strong set, and it's easy to see why they have had such longevity.

Soon enough, the lights dimmed and LCD Soundsystem's Home (appropriately enough) blasted throughout the venue as Said the Whale took the stage. The song ended and they launched into "More Than This", the soft song was a little anticlimactic after that introduction, but then quickly exploded into "Mother" promising "maybe I should fuck something up good".

They kept up the energy for the first few songs, hitting "Camillo (The Magician)" early on, the crowd singing along, not for the last time. Judging by the volume the crowd hit joining in on songs like the beautiful "Curse the Currents" (Ben goading the crowd to sing louder and louder) and "Emerald Lake, AB" and the way the dancefloor was bouncing, the audience was almost as excited to be there as the band was; more than once, the members of the band proclaimed their love and gratitude towards the fans, with big grins on their faces, visibly stoked to be headlining the Commodore.

Highlights from the set included my favourite new track off of hawaiii, "Resolution" which ended with an incredibly energetic Shad joining the band on stage to perform his portion of the song, and one of my favourite Said the Whale tracks overall, "My Government Heart", the stage bathed in red lights as Tyler vitriolically spat out the lyrics.
They also pulled out a deep-cut cover, Father John Misty's "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings", and Tyler got very emotional when he went into "Helpless Son", a song written for his mother, a cancer survivor, who was in the crowd and hearing the song performed live for the first time.

"I Love You" wrapped up the main set with a huge energy, but of course they were back for the obligatory encore; a few more songs before wrapping up with the perfect set-ender, "Goodnight Moon", capping off with Tyler rocking out on the ukulele as hard as someone can rock out on a ukulele.

I've seen Said the Whale more than a few times in the past few years, and I would say this was the best I have seen them play live. They were incredibly tight, firing on all cylinders, Ben & Tyler's voices working in perfect harmony, and even Jacelyn joining in on more backup vocal duties than before.
It made me really excited to see what they come up with next.

setlist
More Than This; Mother; Camillo (The Magician); Narrows; The Light Is You; My Government Heart; Big Sky, MT; Safe To Say; Resolutions; Seasons; I Could Smoke; Oh K, Okay; Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings [Father John Misty cover]; Helpless Son; The Gift of a Black Heart; Loveless; Curse the Currents; Willow; On The Ropes; I Love You.
(encore) The Weight of the Season; Emerald Lake, AB; Goodnight Moon.

I have mentioned this for a few other shows I believe, but there have been a lot of shows this year which feature multiple excellent artists on the same bill. This was yet another example of that trend.

David Vertesi was up first, who you may know from Hey Ocean! He hit the stage alone, and proceeded to woo the crowd with his smooth baritone voice and songs that were a little folky, yet not without an edge to them. And if the attentive silence was any indication, the crowd was sufficiently wooed. He played songs off his upcoming album, Cartography, which I can't wait to get my hands on, though part way through the set he mentioned a new Hey Ocean! album in the works, and had band mates Ashleigh and Dave jump on stage and join him for the next song, which was pretty cool.
Last time I saw him, opening for Hannah Georgas, I had mentioned that I would be interested in hearing the songs with a full band, and for his last song of the set, a couple of the members of By Divine Right joined him, for a fuller sound, but not one that departed too drastically from the rest of the songs.

Next up was Aidan Knight. You might think an album like Versicolour might be hard to pull of live, as it is pretty lush at times, and especially in a smaller place like the Media Club. But he was joined by some great musicians, and with instruments like a stand up bass and rotary flugelhorn, the live set sounded as good, if not better, than the album. He started with "The Sun", which started calm before built up into an epic finale, and then treated us to a new song before a few more off the album. Another highlight was "Knitting Something Nice", with its building intensity and, of course, "Jasper", which ended the set with an incredible energy and just about everyone in the room was at least clapping, if not singing, along.
A couple times he mentioned needing to practice his stage presence, but his awkward nervousness translated more into charm than it did, well, nervous awkwardness, as he owned it and joked about it, rather than let it get to him. That, and when he was playing you could see just how at home he was on stage. I look forward to the next time I have a chance to see him live, and hope it's a show of his own, and not just another opening set.

Finally, to round out the night was By Divine Right. To be quite honest, I am woefully unfamiliar with the band, and was there more to see Vertesi and Knight. However, based on what little I had heard of the band, and their reputation alone, I was definitely interested to see them, and they did not disappoint. With just the three of them, they rocked out and I think it would be fair to say they had the crowd completely enrapt. The highlight for me, though, was near the end of the set, they started one song with the three of them on guitars and proceeded to blow my mind with a song that was comparable (if a little less "grandiose") to Explosions in the Sky or Sigur Rós. The way it just rose and rose in intensity, and the crazy effects used at the end to slowly bring it to an end, was incredible. They ended shortly after that, but came back for the required encore, which saw David Vertesi start a dance party at the front of the stage. Then after some convincing from the crowd, and despite a broken guitar, they played one more, possibly their most well know (to me at least), "Five Bucks". That ended with them "trashing" the stage -- mostly just pushing the drum kit over... right on top of the drummer.

Again, another fantastic night in music, and another testament to the current Vancouver music scene. It is really cool to look through the crowd and see members of other bands, there to support their friends and there because they actually like the music. And just more proof that someone needs to make some sort of "Vancouver Musician Bingo" cards to play at the shows.

Said the Whale @ Commodore -- 12/28/13

By Divine Right (w/ Aidan Knight & David Vertesi) @ Media Club -- 06/29/10