The night started out at Chez Lucien which a bunch of us crowded into a small booth for what can arguably be the best burger in Ottawa. Seriously. The Works has nothing on this slice of heaven.
Afterwards, Mike, Mike S and his buddy..Steve (can’t remember his name now!) ended up in a Russian bar where we had the local delicacy…vodka, beer and pickles. It was quite exciting to enter into another realm of drinking other than a typical pub!
We got to the Music Hall in time to catch the Besnard Lakes. I had never heard of the band but Mike S and Steve were raving about them.
And rave they should have. This band was amazing. My entire being was mesmorized and I couldn’t escape what was coming from their amplifiers. I can only compare them to Godspeed! You Black Emperor or My Bloody Valentine. After checking out Wikipedia, I suppose you can call this type of music ‘shoegazing’. Figure that one out for yourself. Mike doesn’t care for this type of drone-rock but I thoroughly enjoy when I can lose myself in the music.
At the end of the night I went to the merchandise booth to pick up an album and the band was there. I thanked them for the show and asked them which album I should pick up if I was new to them. The singer joked that I should actually pick up all three of them for $45…in the end I picked up the latest one…The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night and I have not put it down since. What an excellent album that all of you should check out!
Wintersleep did not disappoint…I was quite excited to see them as I had missed them at Bluesfest a few years ago. I fell in love with their “Welcome to the Night Sky” album and the “New Inheritors” album was different but has grown on me.
I enjoyed the fact that I don’t have their first two albums (well, I purchased them at the merch booth that night) because they would play a few tracks off of them and I would think it’s a new song (which wasn’t the case considering half the crowd was singing along!). They are masters of the psychadelicly-charged live show and I was blown away by their performance. Who would have thought Halifax could have produced something so massive in sound (Haligonians, I jest!)
Do yourself and see both of these bands if they show up in your town!
Setlist:
Drunk on Aluminum
Encyclopedia
Astronaut
Dead Letter & The Infinite Yes
Weighty Ghost
Black Camera
Experience the Jewel
Mausoleum
Insomnia
Archaeologists
Preservation
Baltic
Laser Beams
Miasmal Smoke and the Yellow Bellied Freaks
Encore
Trace Decay
Orca
Nerves Normal, Breath Normal