luke
Thu Jun 03 2004 @ 11:55 AM
Montreal Review (sort of)

So here.s a quick review for what it.s worth. First off the Slip had a couple of buddies with them which was sort of unique and I think influenced their vibe, Mr. Meowskers is their buddy Matt from the slip song named side project, he played Shakers on Happy Snails as mentioned. What can you say.. Well the overall vibe was in fact very mellow and subdued but infused with this really high level energy which I guess makes sense to this crowd. The opener wasn.t something specifically worked out so I guess they basically call that .The Pulse.- they.ve explored a lot of ways to open their shows and sometimes they go straight into a number, sometimes it.s a worked out intro and I think this was fairly random. This morphed into the Fuji which was modulated in a smart way but the tapes will have to bear that out- it had a neat sort of syncopation to it that was unique to this rendition. Fear of Falling was effortlessly rendered as was the Wolof (Very BIG) into the Shouters. I could say more about these songs but I was hoping for a few more bustouts so I.m a bit unnerved (not to say it wasn.t an insane show). I mean if you know the band.s music you know that the new thrust of their music is the lo fi indy rock aesthetic a la Dinosaur Jr., Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think etc. The Shouters (I.m pretty sure this is a reference to the .play Honeymelon. types myself included), Cut From The Cloth (Come Over), Soft Machine, The Zeroes and to a lesser extent River Sang To Buddha and Predicting The Rain (those songs are a touch older)- all of these songs are fine representations of this songwriting aesthetic. Apart from going into lyrics and whatnot it will suffice to say that they were feeding off an infectious slow burn kind of energy. What.s particularly noteworthy is that the debuted (I.m almost certain) an instrumental version of OUT ON THE WEEKEND which some have heard a glimpse of I Shall Be Released in which I think accounts more for the tone and timbre of it and maybe the chord changes are similar. This was likely the all out highlight of the show. The tapes which turned out very well will evidence this I.m sure, I believe Pete is putting them somewhere people can download I.ll get the details. The Ode To Joy was probably another huge highlight it was very mellifluous sounding with the earthy tones of the sono tube played with flip flops- it worked insanely well. The Zeroes (Children of December) was the obvious way to end the set as the Canadians really saw that song taking shape. .I was lucky I was born in the summer of 1975 it was hot as an oven. (Brad and I were born on the same day oddly enough although I was born in .76) which might explain why we get along. The Dogs On Bikes is of course the classic Slip encore and was balls out. If One Of Us Should Fall was fitting but even for an insanely brilliant song I.ve heard my fair share and would.ve preferred something else. I think they were likely playing with peoples expectations and if people were hoping for Bustout Central I may be to blame in part for requesting gems like Ernie Micky, Rhythm and Gold (Brad had this one written down at the top of his list!) and Honey Melon, Brad also had Clementine on his list and a handful of other maybes like The Earth Will Dissever And Consume You After These Messages and Air Is The Body or Djangos Mangos (both of which were their buddies requests). I didn.t get my Fight Test> Man In The Mirror> Fight Test either which was my way of being a tool which as you know I can be quite good at. So it was a very refined, crisp, highly energized execution of some of their newest material with a couple of nods to their back catalogue but they could.ve dug a bit deeper. I think in part it was that thing that happens to happen at Canadian shows where the artists feel like they have to play all their new stuff especially if they.re only playing one date. If you were to give the show a rating it would be an A . or an A just shy of the A+ because of the relative newness of the material.