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WEAKERTHANS @ PEARL STREET REVIEW

Shifting dynamics please Pearl Street
Daily Collegian | April 15, 2008

Emerging from behind the shadows of speakers and other sight-obstructing objects, The Weakerthans received a hero's welcome Saturday night from a capacity crowd at the Pearl Street Night Club in Northampton. Following an hour-plus set filled with uproars of applause and on-stage theatrics, such a reception proved decidedly warranted.

Building anticipation for the band was opener AA Bondy, a singer-songwriter with a distinctly travel-infused, folk inspired sound. From his half-buttoned collared shirt and tarnished denim to the cigarette suggestively placed behind his ear to his raspy voice and wailing harmonica solos, it was almost impossible not to draw a very obvious (and tiresome) comparison to a young Bob Dylan.

Bondy, however, delivered a fresh approach to a style that often is inundated with imitation rather than innovation, implementing elements of blues throughout his set while using simplistic means such as stomping his foot to accentuate and bring life to his lyrical narratives.

In the wake of Bondy's set came what the singer himself jokingly described as "a Canadian Onslaught." Over 15 minutes of setup and microphone checks teased with the crowd's patience, but when five figures finally emerged into focus from the dimly lit corners of the stage, the crowd uncorked in unison with raucous applause complete with a stray "Yeah Winnipeg" proclamation flying in from the bar. The sporadic side conversations and murmurs that could be heard during Bondy's set all but disappeared, and the crowd hushed in delight for the band's first selection.

The rather mellifluous-sounding "Bigfoot" served as a precursor for an evening in which the band chose to run the spectrum of their catalog. Diversity is not always a recipe for success in a live setting, but their deftly arranged set never allowed for too much of the jovial or upbeat without a necessary counterbalance of the introspective and delicate.

The band transitioned into "Our Retired Explorer" to the delight of the crowd; they clapped along with the breaks and chorus and let out loud chants of approval during vocal breaks throughout the first lively selection of the evening.

Following this, the focus shifted back to more melodic selections from the band's newest release "Reunion Tour." The album's opener, "Civil Twilight" was met with head bobs and gentle swaying and was immediately followed by "Sun in an Empty Room," which turned out to be perhaps the band's weakest offering of the night. Recorded, the layered backing vocals featured in the chorus are a welcomed addition, supplementing vocalist John K. Samson's otherwise dominant presence on the album, but on this night, with the vocal levels being perhaps a bit off, they were flat and unflattering.

Finishing up the portion of their newest material was "Night Windows," another slower-tempo track that was met with more audience participation in the form of unison clapping during the song's conclusion.

After bringing the crowd into somewhat of a stationary lull with some slower material, the band jerked the audience back to life with "The Reason" and "Tournament of Hearts," with the crowd screaming, "I know you might roll your eyes at this, but I'm so glad that you exist" along with the Canadian quintet on the former and moving all around the cramped confines on the latter.

Guitarist Stephen Carroll and bassist Greg Smith proved to be quite the showmen on the tracks; playing up to the crowd with some flamboyant stage movements and guitar caressing that had almost arena rock sensibilities to them.

From this point, the show really hit its stride. Launching into two of their most popular tracks, "Reconstruction Site" and "Aside," the crowd responded positively, becoming as audible as Samson in delivering the words of the respective songs, a quality that would be present for the remainder of the evening.

The first few notes of "Left and Leaving" received one of the loudest ovations of the night. Its subtlety delivered, yet heavily poetic verses were met with an adoring echo of fans, eyes closed, heads swaying, singing in unison. Ultimately this was short lived, as the crowd lost their collective composure for "Plea for a Cat Named Virtue," which saw Carroll leap into the crowd, guitar and all, during the buildup to the song's finale of hectic noise and the band's eventual departure from the stage.

Following a steady minute of building applause, Samson returned to play two songs solo, first "One Great City" followed by "My Favorite Chords" after at least a half dozen requests for it from the crowd. The full band returned for the conclusion of the "My Favorite Chords" and they closed the night with "Virtue The Cat Explains Her Departure" and "(Manifest)," clumsily singing in unison the trumpet notes that herald the song's, and in this case the concert's end.

On more than one occasion following a song's conclusion, The Weakerthans received a cat-call unheard by most concert-goers or bands alike: "Play that one again." While it's often advisable to leave your audience yearning for more, The Weakerthans have managed to transcend that old adage. The applause, the enthusiasm, and the participation they generated from the crowd are proof that not only the desire for more is present, but also that fans are ecstatic with what is delivered.

* The Weakerthans Official Site
* The Weakerthans on Myspace

THE WEAKERTHANS @ PEARL STREET

Weakerthans at Pearl Street

Daily Collegian | April 11, 2008

When Winnipeg native John K. Samson arrives in Northampton this Saturday night for The Weakerthans' performance at The Pearl Street Night Club, he'll be accompanied by more than just a library of music and his trusty metaphors. Samson carries with him the essence of nearly two decades of artistic evolution.

As a member of Propaghandi in the mid-1990s, Samson was a man full of untamed angst and idealism, using the stage as a forum for the band's collectively brash demands for radical social and political change. Vociferating on tracks with such unambiguous titles as "The Only Good Fascist Is a Very Dead Fascist" and "Middle Finger Response," musical subtleties became inconsequential afterthoughts, replaced in favor by a barrage of F-bombs and hostility.

Following their 1996 release "Less Talk, More Rock," Samson left his role in the band to pursue new artistic directions. Shortly after this he resurfaced with a new band, The Weakerthans, in 1997 with their debut release "Fallow," an album that was staggeringly removed from his established musical roots.

Somewhere along the transition between bands, Samson dropped his impetuous and edgy persona, transforming himself into a polished and introspective songwriter. The abrasive sounds and raucous lyrics that were once so synonymous with his presence were replaced by a decidedly more melodic and nuanced sound. Delicately played guitars and supplemental keyboards replaced the more hectic, thrash delivery of instrumentation listeners had grown accustomed to. Most significantly of all, Samson's lyrics unveiled themselves as categorically sensitive in their poeticism. The political-punk had discovered his softer side.

Following the initial success of "Fallow," the band has been unrelenting in their progression. The group has released three subsequent full-lengths over the course of their 10-year existence, with each garnering an increasing amount of fanfare and publicity while further detaching Samson from his days as a loud-mouthed anarchist, and fortifying his place as a one of indie rock's most gifted lyricists.

With his newfound approach to writing, Samson litters his songs with peculiar details of everyday life that seem so miniscule on the surface, but are unmistakably identifiable. Infusing this quality with his seemingly limitless poetic sensibilities, Samson successfully delivers multi-layered themes from a wide variety of narrative perspectives that span full albums.

The Weakerthans latest release, 2007's "Reunion Tour," has been met with a mixed critical reaction and can be best described as the bands most experimental album to date. There is more prominent use of keyboards throughout the album, the composition favors a softer sounding tone, and lyrically, the album shifts in perspective between every one of its 11 tracks.

On "Civil Twilight," Samson lyricizes from the perspective of a frustrated Winnipeg Transit bus driver professing his innermost thoughts. On "Relative Surplus Value," Samson returns to his revolutionary sentiments of old by providing a voice to victims of the ever-growing economic inequalities and failures of modern life, with a subtly and craft unseen during his younger years.

The album's most abstract selection comes in the form of "Elegy for Gump Worsley," a minimally structured song that serves as a spoken word tribute to former cult Canadian hockey legend who recently passed away.

The band does, however, manage to offset some of the bleaker topics covered on the album with some jovial material. You'd be hard pressed to find a song about women's curling that is more infectiously captivating than "Tournament of Hearts." "Sun in an Empty Room's" layered choruses provide a decidedly uplifting quality that contributed an essential balance to the complete work.

Despite the album's considerably fragmented themes, the notion of continuity is not entirely scraped on the far-stretching album. With "Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure," Samson returns to deliver a heartbreaking conclusion to one of the band's most beloved character's story arch. On "Reconstruction Site," the band's 2003 effort, Samson introduced Virtue, a dejected and oft-ignored feline protagonist, in one of the album's most popular cuts "Plea from a Cat Named Virtue." While "Plea" is an upbeat crowd favorite full of unbridled energy, "Departure" is a somber and elegiac retelling of love once-cherished fading into a distant memory, concluding with Virtue reluctantly admitting "I can't remember the sound that you found for me, I can't remember the sound."

In their current form, The Weakerthans are the culmination of Samson's journey from a brash youth into a mature wordsmith. While The Weakerthans may never posses the raw energy of Propaghandi, they more than balance this with the tactful subtleties that define their sound and Samson's continued progression as a storyteller.

The Weakerthans play Saturday, April 12 with opening acts AA Bondy and Christine Fellows at The Pearl Street Night Club in Northampton, part of WMUA's Left of the Dial Concert Series. Doors open for the event at 8:30 p.m. and tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door.