Think About Life and Tune Yards @ OTTF

Think About Life/Tune Yards/Bayonets
Over The Top Festival
Polish Combatants Hall
Friday May 22, 2009

Last minute concerts always turn out to be the most fun. While being bored by the National, I received a message from Jen asking if I wanted to check out Think About Life at Eric Warner’s Over The Top Festival.  I had been wanting to check out the show due to the fact that I am completely obsessed with their new album Family, not to mention that I’ve always heard wicked things about their live shows.  I messaged her back to arrange a ticket pick up and meeting time and began getting excited.

Family will likely get tons of comparisons to TV on the Radio, which isn’t a bad thing and is entirely true.  It’s a pastiche of styles, borrowing elements from hip hop, indie, dance and punk.  I really believe that this album could make them huge, and after witnessing them live, can honestly say that they deserve to be.

Arrived at the Polish Combatants Hall at 9:15pm, earlier than needed, the venue was pretty much empty.  The venue is great, it’s a typical legion hall, but feels cozy and intimate.  The bar staff are super nice and they serve North American and Polish beers.  First band up was Bayonets from Edmonton.  Wasn’t familiar with them at all, they were….noisy and kinda funny.  Jen said they reminded her of The Mae Shi.  Their set was short about 30 minutes, people seemed to enjoy it.  Up next was another artist I wasn’t familiar with.  Tune Yards is a solo project by Merrill Garbus, and her music is quite hard to explain.  I guess you could compare her to Ariel Pink, super lo-fi indie rock.  Her live show is spellbinding.  She does the Final Fantasy recording/looping thing, but also plays the ukulele, drums and sings.  Her voice is her greatest asset, she sings, chants and does wondrous gargling/throat noises.  Layering these different sounds, she creates soundscapes that sound frail at first then build into these room-filling masterpieces.  I was completely floored by her set. Check a video from her performance at Pop Montreal last year below.

Last but not least Think About Life took the stage at 11:30pm, and launched into Havin’ My Baby, the second track on their new album.  Perfect song to start their set.  High energy, fun, and totally danceable.  Their set was super upbeat and got the room going.  They played pretty much all of Family including Johanna, Sweet Sixteen, Young Hearts, The Wizzard and Set You On Fire.  The material is even better live than recorded.  They finished with Paul Cries (from their debut), which saw a good chunk of the audience take to the stage for a full dance party invasion.  In convinced that their set last night will be one of my favourite shows of the year.  It was near perfect.
Ps. The picture above is not from last night, I have stopped carrying a camera to shows, I want to be able to enjoy it and not worry about getting good photos.  The picture is actually taken from an old show in Brooklyn (via BrooklynVegan).