Holy Fuck @ Fortune -- 01/19/17

It's been too song since I last saw the Toronto electronic four-piece live... about seven and a half years, in fact. So when they came through Fortune touring their latest album, Congrats, I sure wasn't going to miss it. 

Unfortunately I did miss locals Peregrine Falls due to the Tiny Kingdom Music launch show, happening at the Biltmore, and only arrived to catching a bit of Mesa Luna's DJ set. 

Promptly at 11, the 4 members hit the stage, Matt McQuaid & Matt Schulz on bass & drums, and Brian Borcherdt & Graham Walsh on, well, everything else; keyboards, distorted vocals, effect, pulling 35mm film through an old synchronizer. You know, the usual. The most captivating part of their live show is that their songs are all performed in the moment, creating a spontaneity you may not always get with electronic music.

Starting off with "Tom Tom" from the new album, the band focused mostly on that, which features a little more by way of vocals than their previous albums. Though -- and I'm not sure if this was their intention or I'm wildly off -- the vocals seem more like an "extra instrument" rather than traditional lyrics, especially in the live show where they're as equal in the mix as the music. 

Aside from songs off Congrats, like the soul-shaking bass in "Chimes Broken", they dipped back to play older tunes from their previous albums, with highlights being the sombre and moody "Stay Lit" and the swirling "Red Lights", both from Latin. And, of course, "Lovely Allen" off LP which is one of the most perfect songs ever written. The intensity built and built, lifting up the entire room to an amazing climax. It would have been the perfect ending, but hey still had some left in the tank, finishing off the main set with the frantic "Super Inuit". 

But of course, that wasn't all; after chants of ho-lee-fuck they were back for a couple more, which were (I think) the vaguely creepy and unsettling "Shivering", a perfect song for a Ghost House in Mario, and the fuzzy "SHT MTN". 

Even with minimal talking throughout the night -- not just the vocals, but the band only paused a couple times for a brief "thank you" to the crowd -- the four members managed to keep the crowd into it and dancing the whole night. Which is not always an easy task with (mostly) instrumental music. It set the bar high as the first show of 2017, and I just hope it's not another seven years 'til next time. 

Review-kus.

My goal is to review every album I bought (or otherwise listened to) this year. But there are just so darn many albums, and sometimes I just don't feel like writing a full reviews. So to combat this, I have decided that I shall give a few really quick reviews all at once... in haiku form. Here we go!

Straight Line by Christina Maria
Great debut album
Vancouver's finest help out*
But a little short
*among the people helping out on the album: Ali Siadat, Hannah Georgas, Shaun Verreault, Megan Bradfield, and Ryan Guldemond & Ryan Dahle, both of which also did some producing/engineering/mixing.

Download Kind Friend

Latin by Holy Fuck
Everything done "live"
Cowboy Cat does it again
Superb follow up

Download Stilettos

Meat by Hawksley Workman
A great range of songs
As eclectic as ever
One great songwriter

Download We'll Make Time

Holy Fuck @ Venue -- 09/24/09

Just a brief aside before the review: the Final Fantasy show tonight has been cancelled due to Owen Pallett having a serious flu. This makes me incredibly sad, as it was the show in this stretch I was most looking forward to... :(
I hope he gets better soon and is able to reschedule... and on a day when I have no other show!
But anyway, on to the matter at hand:

There are two interesting things about my little 5 day stretch (of 4 shows, now). One is they're all in different venues. Tonight was the newly renovated Plaza Club, renamed The Venue, which is a ridiculously silly name. They've opened it up a bit more, especially downstairs, but the awkward general shape is still there -- it still feels like you're inside a ship -- and the sound is only slightly better than it was. The stage got a much needed overhaul, though. It's much bigger with better lights and a pretty nifty LED screen along the back. It's an improvement over the old Plaza Club, but it's still kind of a sub-par venue. It's good enough, but with some of the other, excellent, venues in the town, it's like eating at McDonald's when there is a Cafe Crêpe across the street.

The other interesting thing is the wide variety of music. Sure, they're all Canadian, and would all fit under the "indie" umbrella, but the bands sounds were about at the opposite end of the musical spectrum as last nights lineup. First up was Basketball, who I knew nothing about before the show. And I wish that were still the case. The best way to describe them would be Tribal Electronica, and they started out okay, but by the end it kind of devolved into pretentious noise, with all songs sounding... kinda similar. They had decent energy, with the lead singer jumping into the crowd a few times to sing and all three members jumping around switching instruments through most of the set, but were most certainly nothing I'm in a hurry to hear again.

Finally around 11, Holy Fuck hit the stage and... wow. They may be an electronica band, but this was no simple DJ set. They don't use any fancy tricks -- like looping, splicing or programming anything -- so everything was done live with the help of drums, a guitar, and two tables full of keyboards and other miscellaneous instruments... as well as non-instruments, like a 35mm film synchronizer. Having the show done this way, you almost get the sense that no two Holy Fuck shows will ever be alike. Sure, the songs themselves will always be the same, but the subtle nuances of them will always shift and change, just by the very nature of how they play live shows.
They went for a solid hour or so, just rocking out with limited breaks between the songs and not much by way of stage banter -- only speaking to us twice, to thank us and that sort of thing -- but they more than made up for it with the amount of energy they put into playing; an energy that overflowed off the stage and got damn near everyone in the place moving. They were less a band a more a force of nature. Case in point, they ended the main set with Lovely Allen, which was indescribably amazing, and had had everyone jumping. I would have been completely satisfied had they ended the night there, but they came back out for a couple more, leaving our already blown minds steaming piles of goo all over the Venue floor.

Simply put, I can not wait to have the chance to see Holy Fuck live again.
(also, I managed to snag a copy of that creepy-as-fuck poster for my ever expanding poster wall. huzzah!)

I will leave you with proof. This video was not mine, I take no credit for it other than finding it on the YouTubes and posting it here: