The New Pornographers

 

Date: 08 June 2010

Venue: Edmonton Event Centre

Guests: Steph, Angela & Scott

Tickets: $30

Opening Band:
The Mountain Goats

I enjoyed the opening band; I was expecting a band that was more local, as The New Pornographers hail from Vancouver, and The Mountain Goats are from North Carolina. Nothing they sang particularly stood out to me, but they did have good energy, and a similar sound to The New Pornographers. Angela wiki'd them during the show and we were astounded to discover that they are exceptionally prolific. The band originated in 1991, and there are 17 albums to date. The most recent success they have was from "The Mountain Goats will cure your Bieber Fever" meme from early May.
They have an album called Heretic Pride, and all the songs are based on biblical verses, which appeals to me as I love albums with a unifying theme and that are written with a certain method to the madness. Also, scattered throughout the 17 albums, there are different song series, which also have a theme through them. The "Going to..." series reminds me of "Away We Go".
All in all.... 6 out of 10 stars. (7 had they been/become Canadian.)

Main Act:
The New Pornographers

Set List:
Sing Me Spanish Techno
Up in the Dark
Myriad Harbour
Use It
The Laws Have Changed
Crash Years
Jackie, Dressed in Cobras
Adventures in Solitude
All the Old Showstoppers
Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk
Challengers
Moves
A Bite Out of My Bed
Testament to Youth in Verse
Your Hands (Together)
My Shepard
Twin Cinema
Silver Jenny Dollar
Mass Romantic
The Bleeding Heart Show

Jackie
It's Only Diving Right
Slow Decent into Alcoholism

The New Pornographers hit the stage at about 9:30, and played for a solid 90 minutes. There were 8.5 members of the band (Dan Bejar would mysteriously leave the stage then occasionally stagger back on for about half of the songs with a brew in his hand). The main singing was done by (A.C.) Carl Newman and Neko Case, with Kathryn Calder and Kurt Dahle on backup vocals.

I thought the vocals were great, although the speaking between songs was a little garbled and difficult to understand. I was throughly disappointed that they didn't play My Rights Versus Yours, I believe it was requested but they didn't play it as it was a downer... and they didn't remember all the words, but this was in the garbled sections between songs I didn't fully catch. It's my favourite of their songs, not to mention the third most popular song of their on iTunes, so the fact that they didn't get to this song is a dash in the negative category.

The band didn't seem to engage with the audience at all... with the exception of Kathryn and Carl, who seemed into the show. Kathryn Calder seems genuinely excited to be there during the show, and stuck around afterwards and mingled with the few people that stuck around after the show. Dan Bejar was very strange on stage... when he was on stage and wasn't singing vocals he would face the drums with his back to the audience... and when he was facing the audience, he was nursing a different beer every time he hit the stage. A beard-less John Collins also stuck around after the show to talk to people, which was appreciated.

The band has been around for 13 years, so there is a lot of material to go through, and a lot of great songs to choose from. I loved all the different instruments and the way the band used them, there was an electric cello (played by guest instrumentalist Ben Kalb; when looking into his other credits, I see that he had contributed to, my fellow Claremont 2002 alumni, Kendel Carson's Alright Dynamite album) harmonica, vibraphone, accordion, kaossilator and other synthesizers, and adept whistling, especially on "The Crash Years". The vocals were rich with so many members, but also it was hard to pick out any individual sounds of the instruments with SO much going on.

Fun fact: Todd Fancey, the guitarist for The New Pornographers, sang the song that Jan played during the Dinner Party episode of The Office... :)

All in all, I would say the show was an 8, but it could easily increase with a bit more engagement with the audience, visiting with fans after the show, and of course, playing "My Rights Versus Yours".