noise++ with matty & derek

In the last week I was able to make it to a couple shows. First was the Laura Veirs / Liam Finn show followed by The Trucks / Northern State a few days later. Both shows were great for completely different reasons. In this post I’ll go over how they stacked up.

The first set from the Folk show was Liam Finn. I had never even heard of him before going to the show (I was there for Laura Veirs). I wasn’t expecting much from the opener and actually could of missed him if my pre-show Iced Capp excursion had been a little more interesting. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Liam Finn actually rocks. He puts on a great show and was pretty funny between sets. Using pedals he ended up playing guitar, singing multiple simultaneous tracks, and playing the drums all at once. He pulled it off really smoothly. Although, I wasn’t his backup vocalists biggest fan. If I were him, I would go solo! Overall it was a pretty fun set.

(Clip of “Liam Finn- Second Chances [0:40 min])

Laura Veirs

That night Laura Veirs also put on a great headlining show. She wasn’t as energetic as any of the other bands I saw but her music doesn’t really suit that anyway. Her voice is just a good live as on her albums. All of her fans were satisfied. She played all her hits from her lengthly album collection and the non-standard songs were pretty cool too (she even rocked a banjo at one point). She also kept everyone entertained with clever jokes and stories in between songs. Being an avid fan, I was throughly entertained the entire way through.

(Clip of “Laura Veirs- Don’t Lose Yourself [0:40 min])

The Trucks were the band I was most excited about out of all four. Expect my opinion to be chalked fully of all sorts of bias. This leads me to a logical statement, which is — I thought they were awesome. They were much more fun than I expected (and I expected them to be off the charts). All decked up out in funky clothes they danced around like fools and encouraged the audience to follow suit. They engaged everyone with special intro/outro songs and even had a short instrument-less song about a perv in the bushes. At the beginning all the vocals and synth were drown out by drums but luckily it seemed to work itself out a few songs in. If you are into all things Trucks, they are a must see live.

(Clip of “The Trucks- Diddle-Bot [0:45 min])

Northern State was another band I didn’t know until after buying my ticket. Although this time I bought their latest album before going. There music is really good and so was their show. They were a lot of fun on stage and kept a new fan like me amused the whole way through (sans the Radiohead cover). They were also one of the first bands in a long time that didn’t have an encore. At first I was kinda disappointed but really it was kind of refreshing not having to force them into the usual completely obvious im-going-to-leave-now situation that everyone expects at the end of shows. They were great end to an awesome string of bands. Now, time for a break.

(Clip of “Northern Touch- Better Already [0:35 min])