Rapidly becoming one of my favourite bands and certainly a “live”
staple, this lot; Alvvays, Nova Scotia’s finest purveyors of C86 inflected
spunky powerpop and wistful dreampop, with a dark, intangible hint of menace
always lurking nearby. Their sophomore effort, “Antisocialites” saw that sound
refined further over a set of instantly memorable tunes, and was a comfortable
Top 5 album for me last year, so I pounced on the opportunity to see them “live”,
more familiar with that material as I am now. And it seemed that I was not the
only one thus motivated; not only were they playing appreciably bigger venues
this time around, stepping up to Bristol’s bigger Trinity hall, having sold out
the Fleece and Thekla in the past, but then the Trinity itself sold out in
short order!
The day didn’t start too well for me though, with a spill on some black
ice on my cycle ride into work. Yikes! Thus it was a slightly bruised David
that Stuart (who’d sorted his ticket early too) picked up prompt at 6.30 for a
swift drive down chatting about comics, oddly enough… a short parking-mare (!)
saw us eventually pitch up to the venue about ¼ to 8, Stuart grabbing a drink before
we wandered near the front, slightly stage left, for openers Spinning Coin at
8. Alternating lead vocals between the 2 guitarists (seemingly a case of, you
wrote it, you sing it!), their opener was a droney alt-rock workout recalling the
Velvet Underground, which built up a nice head of steam and was sung by the
taller, deeper voiced guitarist, then his partner-in-crime took over for a more
lilting C86 jangle workout, singing voice being an octave higher than seemingly
comfortable! His vocals were subsequently less strained and his material
tending toward a more low-key, pastoral strumalong (Girls, Real Estate and The
Shins came to mind here), but I enjoyed the more overt material of his partner,
the likes of “Someone To Remind Me” and “Why” harder-edged and pacier,
recalling The Wedding Present or even (at their absolute best) Seafood. Not too
bad overall; file under “Schizophrenic but Interesting…”
Ran into Sammy, the singer of Martyrials, and remarked upon his batshit
crazy “12 Bands” set, before re-taking our spot down a busy front for this
sell-out and anticipated show. Alvvays were on prompt at 9, Minnie Mouse-voiced
vocalist Molly Rankin leading her charges through the briskly-delivered mutant
pop of “Hey” for openers, Molly Mayhem at your doorstep already, before
announcing, “Bristol! How’s it popping! We’re not on the boat! The boat is
nice, but there’s no Wi-Fi in that Green Room!”
Alvvays were again superb tonight, utterly smashing it “live” from the
get-go. One of those bands that offer an extra edge, an increased urgency and
dynamism “live”, their set, initially based around that splendid
“Antisocialites” album, swooped and coruscated, alternating between hectic C86
jangle-alongs (“Plimsoul Punks” and a breathless “Lollipop”), stately
melancholy (a brilliant “In Undertow”, also showcasing some hard-hitting drums
from new-ish drummer Shannon) and moments of stark, eerie beauty (the opening
section of “Forget About Life”, which saw Molly picked out by a single
spotlight as she delivered her haunting vocal, backed only by low synth
colourwash and reminding these veteran ears of The Human League’s similarly
stripped back rendition of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”). Clearly having a
ball up there on the first night of their tour, they showed no first-night
nerves or ring-rustiness, sounding full, in-sync and dynamic throughout. In
good fooling too, Molly relating the story of how they ordered a projection
screen from Belgium for this tour, only for it to arrive in moth-eaten bits,
then indicating her white shirt with the comment, “so this is the projection screen tonight!”
The latter stages of the set drew more from their debut album; thus we had
a heartfelt “Ones Who Love You” followed by a racy, pacy “Atop A Cake”, then
the soaring singalong to the huge, already-a-classic “Archie, Marry Me”. “Party
Police” and profuse thanks from a beaming Molly for being, “a great crowd” rounded
off the set, a couple of encores culminating in “Next Of Kin” bumping us up to
1 hour 10 and closing out another exceptional performance. Grabbed a list after
a short wait, then headed off for an early return, home by 11! Superb stuff
from Alvvays, as always… if that was the opening date, imagine how they sound
fully warmed up… And given their ascendancy in Bristol, they’d better book the
O2 Academy next time around, as on this form they’d sell that out too!
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