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Last night I was faced with the ultimate of all hipster conundrums - somehow, the lines between promoters got crossed, and Toronto ended up having two bands with quite similar audiences slated to play the SAME NIGHT. But at different venues.

So I had to choose - did I want to see post-rock pioneers Slint perform the entirety of their watershed album Spiderland for the first time since its release in 1991? Or did I prefer to see Pitchfork & Metacritic-approved NYC math-rock geniuses Battles perform material from their debut album Mirrored? In the end, the latter won out - as genius as Spiderland will always be, I’ve heard far too many great things about Battles, including Stereogum’s review of their performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival this past weekend.

The composition of Lee’s Palace last night was such: 95% male (not surprising), 20-30-something musician/writer/Urban Outfitter-employed types. They were all over 6′0, and most appeared to have (at least to music theory illerati like me) a strong grasp of time, composition, structure, and other intricacies of your standard song.

Battles took the stage a full 30 minutes after their scheduled time, so the audience was already getting cranky by the time they got started. And for the first while it was unclear whether this was the actual show, or they were still tuning their instruments. The show was mired in technical glitches but they tried to make the best of it - the crowd was restless though, and demanded constant updates. Among the comments overheard:

“This isn’t what Pitchfork promised! They promised you’d play Atlas back to back five times!”

“What are you guys doing? Update? Get a ticker tape going!”

And while the band attempted to rewire a busted guitar cabinet, the crowd demanded some improvised jams:

“Dip into the trust fund, man!”

[chanting] “Stoner jam! Stoner jam! Stoner jam!”

The dudes put together a riotous medley of material from Mirrored as well as some new jams. Drummer John Stanier (who used to play in Helmet) was so soaked in sweat it looked like he’d fully submerged himself in a bathtub. Singer Tyondai Braxton produced vocals so eerie they sounded like they were inhuman. And he beatboxed! Dave Konopka, on guitar, basically writhed around on the ground and produced these superb Jonny Greenwood-esque distortion sounds from his instruments.

And then there was Ian Williams, who manned both keyboards AND guitar (I had to read up on this just now because at the time I really couldn’t grasp what he was doing) - apparently he’s well known for using a technique called “finger tapping” with his guitar, combined with two Akai Headrush guitar pedals. So he was using his left hand to finger tap, the right one to play notes on the keyboard, and both feet on the pedals. This lets him actually accompany himself, using a hand for each instrument.

And Wikipedia says Ian made an appearance in the movie High Fidelity (of course he did!) in the scene where John Cusack announces he’s about to “sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band.” Heh.

Posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 3:13 pm by Kat and is filed under Concerts & Events.

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