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Dan Werb of Woodhands @ The Drake Underground

Paul Banwatt of Woodhands @ The Drake Underground

Ohhhhhhh my, is it CMW still? Kat and I hit the town for a second night to check out what all the fuss is about…a fuss that goes by the name of Woodhands. But wait, that’s all we were scheduled to see? One band on a Friday night filled with acts?! Well, I’ll tell you we also saw Wintergloves. And, actually, we meant to see Raised By Swans as well, but they were not able to make it downtown last night on account of the weather.

Missing out on Raised By Swans was by far the biggest disappointment of the night. Apparently the weather was just too much to handle, very understandable if you’ve ever made the drive from London in a storm. However, they emailed Kat late at night promising to come back to Toronto sometime soon.

No longer having any reason to stay at Rancho Relaxo, we headed over to the Drake way earlier than expected, hoping to avoid any sort of “we love the Woodhands, ahhhhhh!” crowd. Unfortunately, our diligence only landed us on the curb, in the snow, cold and lonely. Apparently the Drake Underground is the smallest show venue in Toronto; they were letting nobody in, citing the fact that they were at capacity.

Eventually a set ended and enough people left to allow us entrance, but by then I was cold and lonely (as I mentioned).

On to Winter Gloves; I honestly wasn’t expecting much from them but they definitely surprised me. Like most CMW sets, they played for about 30-40 minutes. Their sound is somewhere between Muse and The Receiver. I’ll be keeping an eye out for their next show; I’d really like to see what they do with a full set of their own. Plus they mentioned that they’d just finished recording their debut album…

Finally, the moment we’d been waiting for, Woodhands. They took to the stage facing each other, an odd choice I thought. But, as the show progressed the reason for this became obvious. These two dudes, Dan Werb and Paul Banwatt, really and truly love each other. They just wanted to be able to stare into each other’s eyes as the serenaded one another…little known fact about Woodhands, they don’t sing for you, they sing for each other but like making it a public display of affection.

Seriously though, these guys put on a great set. They perfectly complement each other on stage making their whole delivery look effortless. They played songs from their upcoming album and a cover (California Lovin’) plus what I think was an impromptu jam. In keeping with the rough around-the-edge theme of CMW, they botched their first attempt at the cover and had to give it a second go. I’m confident they did that on purpose.

One really interesting thing about the show is that they were offering their CD for sale…despite the fact that it isn’t set for release until a month from now. I liked this a lot because it meant I could take them home with me without the risk of them turning me down.

If you tried to get into this show last night but were turned away, don’t fret. Woodhands will be playing their CD release party on April 3 at Wrongbar. Be there.

Posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 10:54 am by Leah and is filed under Concerts & Events.

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