In Montreal, Thursday night is as good as the weekend already. And what better way to celebrate the first weekend of winter than the return of STRFKR to Montreal for the first time in 3 years?!
First up are Polyvinyl labelmates Psychic Twin, project of ex-Headlights frontwoman Erin Fein and Rosana Caban, and their first visit to Montreal. Whereas Headlights were somewhat cutesy and indie-pop, Psychic Twin are a whole different proposition. Playing their entire 30-minute set in near darkness, they’re a brooding, atmospheric affair. Erin layers her own vocals to create harmonies, while Rosana adds the electronic percussion. At other times, the beats are almost industrial. The sizeable crowd already assembled is engrossed, and set closer and debut single Strangers is played with just a single pulsing strobe light between them on the pitch black stage, to spectacular effect. A fantastic start to the show, and the bar is set high for the evening!
Which makes what happens next all the more odd. Minneapolis-based Gigamesh is a DJ and Producer, so it’s assumed he’ll warm up the crowd a little prior to the arrival of STRFKR. However, he actually gets set up in the middle of the stage, facing the crowd, like a regular band, and proceeds to play a DJ set for a full 45 minutes. The crowd mostly just shuffles and nods, like for any support band really, and save for adding a few beats from a drum pad or a few keys, he basically just plays remixed versions of songs like Grouplove’s Tongue Tied, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams, and others that I couldn’t quite make out. He’s clearly good at it, no question, but it’s just a weirdly awkward 45 minutes, and drags out the evening somewhat, so that STRFKR don’t arrive on stage until after 11pm. When you work a full time job, and are reviewing 4 gigs in a week, a needlessly late night is the last thing you need…
Thankfully, Portland’s STRFKR know how to put on a show. 4 characters in spacesuits come on stage first, facing the crowd, and are then followed by the band themselves. As the band launch into oldie Pop Song, the spacemen start dancing, and continue through the first 5 songs. Whoever is in those suits must be boiling hot! Frontman Josh Hodges is dressed in a sparkly blue dress and blonde wig, pretty much exactly how Emily Haines looks during Metric shows, and the band tears through a set of predominantly older songs; of the 24 played tonight, only 6 feature from new record Being No One, Going Nowhere. After the last funky ska riffs of Rawnald Gregory Erickson The Second conclude, Josh switches places with drummer Keil Corcoran, who then takes up vocal duties for a few songs. Sazed sounds great, with light beams protruding through the smoke throughout the familiar “Gl-Gloriaaaaaa” chorus, as does Bury Us Alive, as a stage bathed in blue light is repeatedly peppered with green lasers.
Josh then proclaims to the crowd that “we love your city and your country, can we move here??!!” The crowd roars in approval. They proceed to play a chunk of songs from the new record, solid enough, but things do feel like they’re going into a bit of a lull; after all, it’s now past midnight, and most of us have been here since before 9. As if sensing the need for a pick-me-up, the dancing spacemen return the stage again, and a few crowd-surfers even take to the skies. One of the spacemen joins in, and upon returning to the stage, two of the spacemen remove their suits to reveal that it was Erin and Rosana of Psychic Twin all along! The dancing continues with a fun cover of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (yep, the Cyndi Lauper song), before the main set wraps up emphatically with arguably STRFKR’s best song, Millions, and lastly Leave It All Behind, complete with the stage screens flashing bright white.
After a brief break, they return for an encore, and in addition to the standard 2 songs played during the encores of this tour, we are also treated to the classic Julius, the sci-fi sounding classic from 2011’s Reptilians record, which hasn’t featured often of late. While I’m Alive from 2013’s Miracle Mile record provides an epic conclusion to the evening, giving the crowd one final dance-off, before the band finally leave the stage for good after 24 songs and 95 minutes. Aside from the annoyingly late set times and the curious, over-long DJ set, it’s a great evening overall, and everyone at Théatre Fairmount got their weekend started right!
Set List
Pop Song
Malmo
Astoria
Mystery Cloud
Tape Machine
Satellite
Reptilians
Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second
German Love
Sazed
Atlantis
Bury Us Alive
Something Ain’t Right
Open Your Eyes
Never Ever
In The End
Boy Toy
Quality Time
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Millions
Leave It All Behind
Isabella Of Castile
Julius
While I’m Alive
Review & photos – Simon Williams
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