Just caught the end of his performance as we were running a little late, but liked what I heard. Have a listen for yourself. Mellow but upbeat, with interesting instrumentals. My favourite song of his is Jasper. He has done a lot of support work for Dan Mangan and Hannah Georgas to name a few.
We are the City:
Main Act:
Said the Whale
Good performance, with a pile of passion in their songs. They won a competition earlier this year form The Peak in Vancouver. They are up and comers and I'm hoping to hear more from them later this year as they put their winnings into prize development. This is from last December, Astronomers, my favourite song of theirs. They were a little quiet and subdued for an opening band, but that's their style.
Said the Whale
Set List:
Dear Elkhorn 
Oh, Said the Whale. You are quickly on your way to being my favourite band. This is the third time I've seen you at the Starlite room/Brixx in the last 9 months. I am eagerly awaiting the next album for sure! My favourite song of this concert has to be the Curse of the Currents. Ben played it on acoustic guitar and it sounded hauntingly beautiful in my opinion.
Trumpet, xylophones and ukulele all were featured in a song or two in the mix which was quite fun and added some variety to the set. We Are the City and Aidan Knight were popping up behind the boxes and came on stage for a song as well. You can tell from the chemistry that have a good friendship going and they all really are having fun on the tour. Speaking of working in collaboration, I wish I could have seen them as the Malahat revue. They played concerts as part of bicycle tour they did on Vancouver Island with Hannah Georgas , Aidan Knight and Jeremy Fisher in the summer, biking between venues and played in some teensy intimate venues along with Sugar and the VFMF.
July 18 | Vancouver Folk Music Festival
July 16 | Nanaimo Entertainment Centre
July 13 | Roberts Creek Hall
July 11 | Duncan Garage Showroom
July 10 | Sugar in Victoria
July 9 | | Pender Island Community Hall
July 8 | Salt Spring Island Artspring Theatre
As an aside, Said the Whale just recently was mentioned in USA today with Hey Rosetta, another great Canadian band. I love the energy and contrast between Tyler and Ben on lead vocals that are at works with the last album, Islands Disappear; they played all the songs I was wanting to hear, and are apparently in the process of getting a new album up and on the way. I also love the irony of Ben's hat here, in reference to my favorite song of theirs, False Creek Change. It is an Expo '86 hat. Awesome.
