TOPS at The Masquerade, Atlanta, June 15, 2019

An interesting thing happened almost exactly halfway through Montreal band TOPS' set at The Masquerade last night - the guitarist, who had been silent all night, said something into the microphone (we couldn't tell exactly what he said, but he did say something), and after that all of the fuzz and gauzy ambience that clouded the sound for the first half of the set suddenly disappeared, and finally we could distinctly hear all of the musicians in the band.  We don't know what happened exactly, if someone simply turned the reverb off at the soundboard or if the treble was reduced on the guitar, but thirty minutes into the set (there's a clock next to the stage at The Masquerade for some reason, so you can't help but know how long things have been going on) the band finally started sounding like they were playing for a live audience, not just trying to reproduce studio tracks in a live setting.  Just like that, the set went from an "okay" show to a "great" show.

Actually, that was just one of at least four interesting thing that happened last night.  There may have been other interesting things as well, but for the sake of this post let's say four interesting things happened, and we'll review them in reverse order to recount the evening.

INTERESTING THING 1: TOPS' SET

We first heard the band TOPS back in 2011 when we drove out to Athens, Georgia to hear the band Prince Rama at a restaurant (Farm 255) one December evening.  As always, the Prince Rama show was great, and we got to hear several new, upcoming Athens bands open for them (none of which we had ever heard from again).  But after the show, walking back to our car, we heard the sound of a nearby band playing outside on a nearby deck, and we wandered over to check it out.  The band sounded fantastic, quite possibly the best music we had heard all night, and we asked some rando in the audience who this was and he said "TOPS.  From Montreal."  

TOPS in Athens, December 2011

We liked them, and we've been following their career ever since, which hasn't been difficult because they record at a languid pace.  Their first LP, Tender Opposites, came out in 2012, followed by Picture You Standing in 2014, and as far as we know, they haven't released anything since Sugar At The Gate in 2017.  Three albums over 8 years - yeah, we can keep up with that.  We know that they have played Atlanta at least once before, but it was the same night back in 2014 that West Coast bands Motopony (Seattle) and Family Crest (S.F.) were playing the Drunken Unicorn, so we missed them.  Don't know how often they've been through these parts other than that.

But we weren't going to miss them yet again, some seven and a half years after that Athens encounter, so last night we caught their set at The Masquerade.  Not surprisingly, all these years later, they looked and sounded much more polished, much more professional, and much more accomplished, although they still had their characteristic charm and sweetness, thanks largely to singer and frontperson Jane Penny.

As we said above, the sound mix for the first half of the set sounded fuzzy and gauzy, and it was hard to hear Penny's vocals over the mix and the guitar sounded more like washes of chords than individual notes.  It gave the set a dream-pop ambience, but after guitarist David Carriere announced whatever it was he announced, the guitar suddenly sounded so much clearer and Penny's voice could finally be heard above the instruments.  Much better, and things took off from there, including this instrumental passage at the end of one of their songs:

All your favorite indie bands are now jam bands.  As the instrumental jam above, while great, is not really representative of TOPS' sound, here's a cut from their recent Sugar At The Gate LP to give you a better sense of their indie pop style:

 

The club was only about half full but the audience were clearly TOPS fans, singing along several times and enthusiastically applauding each and every song.  And everyone left with a smile on their face.

INTERESTING THING 2: THE OPENING ACTS DIDN'T SUCK

TOPS apparently aren't touring with another act, and both of the opening bands last night were local Atlanta outfits. While Atlanta is blessed with a large number of excellent bands, oftentimes at least one of the bands on a bill like this is either playing a live set for the very first time and making all sorts of rookie mistakes, or are the band of someone's boss's son and bereft of any musical talent.

Not so tonight.  Both bands, Breathers and Fantasy Guys, were fun.  Openers Breathers played 80s-sounding synthpop with earnest vocals and eminently danceable beats.

The middle act, Fantasy Guys, also trafficked in A.M. pop with jazzy instrumentation and falsetto vocals.

Both bands were good compliments to TOPS' indie-pop sound and played enjoyable sets, neither of which devolved into endurance events ("when will they finish?").  So that was nice. And, um, interesting.

INTERESTING THING 3: WE GET PROFILED

The Masquerade is not our favorite music venue, and many of the bands that perform there play in genres other than our liking: hip hop, hardcore punk or punk-pop, metal, and emo.  It's basically music for teenagers, but no problem - everything doesn't have to be to our liking, and it's actually kind of convenient to have one venue that it's pretty consistently safe for us to avoid.  

But the complex has three stages and puts on a show in at least one of those stages nearly every night, so statistically, sooner or later, someone we like will eventually come through (such  as last night's TOPS show), and while it's rare, from time to time we still take in a show at The Masquerade.

Yesterday we arrived early, at least before the first set began, and waited around for the music to start by nursing a beer and scrolling though our phone.  At some point, we made eye contact with one of the black-tee-shirted bouncers, who asked us, "How you doin'?" 

"Okay," we replied.

But not 60 seconds later, he asked again, "You doin' okay?"  We thought maybe he didn't hear us the first time, so we said, "Yep.  Doin' good, man."

We took a couple steps away from him, but when we looked back just to see if his attention had wandered somewhere else, he asked a third time, "You okay?'

We walked back to where he was standing and said, "You keep checking in with us.  What's up?"

"Well," he answered, "You're a little, um, different, than our usual customer."

Okay, we told him, we acknowledge that we're older, in fact a lot older, than the usual fan at The Masquerade, but we like new music and don't know many people our age who share our interest but we're not going to let that keep us from going out to shows.  He seemed to like that answer, but pressed us a little more about what music we liked.  "You like hip hop?," he asked.

When we told him rap wasn't really our thing, we could appreciate what they do but it's not necessarily something we're excited about going out and watching live, he haughtily replied that hip-hop and rap aren't necessarily the same thing.

"We know that," we said, and then proceeded to tell him that while we weren't big fans of hip hop, over the years we have seen Snoop Dogg live, and Wu Tang, and De La Soul, and going way back to the day, even Digable Planets.  He liked the name dropping and seemed glad that we knew at least a few hip-hop bands, so we went on and told him that while we've never seen Kendrick Lamar live, we consider him a hip-hop genius and his album, To Pimp A Butterfly, nothing short of a masterpiece. "Yes!," he enthused, so we dug a little deeper and said that once we heard King Kunta, the first cut off the album, we knew this would change everything.

He was so happy about that he high-fived us, and we even sang "What's the yams?" (a line from Kunta) to prove we knew what we were talking about.

"So we okay?," we asked him, and he said yes, but it was his job to check things out and make sure there wasn't going to be any problems.  "I can see you're here for the music," he said, and picking up then on his actual concern, we told him that we knew we stood out and that we go out of our way to avoid even the appearance of being there to bother or creep out young girls.

That was it.  "Yeah," he said, "I noticed you walked away any time a girl stood near you" (which wasn't really true, but we weren't going to argue).  "I appreciate that."

So that's what it was all about.  The bouncer picked us out of the crowd based on our age and then interviewed us to make sure we weren't some sort of molesters or creeps, and due to our appearance we had to convince him we weren't, both by passing his hip-hop name-dropping quiz and then by acknowledging his very concern.

Now, while on one level we're glad that someone at the club is keeping an eye out for the safety and security of underage girls at The Masquerade, our encounter was nothing short of being profiled, being treated differently than the rest of the audience based solely on our age.  Age discrimination. We know this experience is far more pervasive and far worse for people of color than for us, but it still doesn't sit well that we were "interviewed" not because of anything we said or did, but because of the way we looked and one bouncer's preconception of who we might be and what we might do.

Fuckin' Masquerade, man.

INTERESTING THING 4: WE ACTUALLY WENT OUT A SECOND NIGHT IN A ROW

Yeah, that's a thing.  Last weekend we went out to two shows on two consecutive nights, one all the way out in Athens, and felt like we had "lost"  a weekend, and then this weekend, we went and did it all over again.  Friday night at Variety Playhouse and last night at The Masquerade.  And we even went out to brunch and a walk during the day yesterday.

We're old and inclined to stay cooped up home alone if at all possible, so it's actually pretty extraordinary that we went out to two shows in a row.  We may be low energy, but who can resist the option of getting out to molest teen girls hear live bands?