Last Wednesday night, Toronto's Alvvays played a sold-out Terminal West.
We arrived before the doors opened at 7:30 and there was already a line in front of the box office, a rarity for TW, but we still managed to get a good spot from which to watch, only about one row back from the stage. If we had any doubts about whether or not we were in for a good night, those concerns were assuaged by a medley of Yo La Tengo songs played on the house PA before the show began. Anything that begins with a medley of Yo La Tengo songs is probably going to be alright.
The Halifax-based band Nap Eyes opened the show and proved we were correct.
We know Nap Eyes for only one song, No Fear of Hellfire, but we've wanted to see them for a while now. The last time they played Atlanta that we know of just so happened to be on the same Sunday night as Hinds was playing at The Mammal Gallery, so unfortunately we missed them back then, so it was good to finally make their acquaintance on Wednesday night. On their first song, they sounded like vintage Velvet Underground, and on their second, vintage Talking Heads, and for the rest of their set, they sounded like Nap Eyes. They closed their set with a blistering guitar solo that lead into No Fear of Hellfire.
So that was cool.
Part of the enjoyment of going to shows is that you, individually, can disappear and become part of a larger community - the appreciative audience of fans. We think it's the same on stage, where individual musicians disappear into the collective band. Each band member is contributing something to the overall sound, and knows the audience is there for the sum total of the parts, not their individual contribution. Even the front-person knows that she sounds good only because the other guitarist is filling in all the important parts, the keyboardist is fleshing out the sound and adding texture, the drummer is keeping it on the right rhythm, and the bass player is holding the whole thing together. We think there's a spiritual unity there, an intimacy, and it shows when ego gets in the way and one musician or another forgets their place in the collective whole.
It's like that for the audience, too Collectively, you can inspire the band with applause and timely reactions to particularly timely passages, and individually you can come to appreciate a band even more by allowing yourself to get caught up in the collective enthusiasm. Resist the enthusiasm and you're just standing there, arms crossed, out of it and not having a good time, or fantasize that you're not part of a larger crowd and the band is playing only for you and you alone, and then you're like those two drunk girls at Tuesday night's Hundred Waters show.
The truly sublime moments come when both the audience and the band enter into a shared collective identity and everyone disappears, on stage and on the floor. Wednesday night's set by Alvvays was like that.
We've seen Alvvays before, twice opening for The Decemberists during their two-night stand at The Tabernacle, and once opening for Yuck at The Earl back in 2014. They sounded pleasant enough back then, and got a nice reaction from the audience with their signature anthem, Marry Me, Archie. But since that time, they've released a new record, this year's fabulous Antisocialites, and damn if they don't sound ten times better - crisper, more melodic, and perfectly balanced. Lead singer Molly Rankin's voice not only rose nicely above the band, but her enunciation is such that you could even follow along to all the lyrics, even to those songs you hadn't heard before
Alvvays sounded great and the new songs from Antisocialites sound even better live than they do on disk (and that's saying something). As implied earlier, the audience was incredibly supportive (without being obnoxious) and everyone had a great time. Alvvays ended their set with their hits Marry Me, Archie and Dreams Tonight, followed for some reason by Party Police, although after the triumphant one-two punch of Archie and Dreams, Party Police was a bit underwhelming.
Listening to these two songs back-to-back is as good an explanation as any of the leap Alvvays seems to have made from a good band (Archie) to a great band (Dreams).
Final note: Being an old man, and a working one at that, I was pleased that I got home from the show well before 11:00 p.m.
Another note: What the hell is wrong with Archie, anyway? Why doesn't he just marry that girl, already?
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