The Dears
Date: October 2, 2008 Maybe a Bit Destroyed At the last minute, I realized that the night that I was in Montreal to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Dears were playing such a late show that I could see both sets. At the risk of the latter show being overshadowed by the inevitably head-spinning greatness of the former, I picked up Dears tickets. In the end, I was definitely glad to have extended my evening for this memorable concert. As this was my thirteenth encounter with The Dears, one might expect that the shows have become somewhat routine. This expectation could not be farther from the truth on this night, though. For starters, the band recently underwent a dramatic reconfiguration, with frontman Murray Lightburn and wife Natalia Yanchak carrying the torch for an otherwise entirely new line-up. This would be only the third set from the new unit. In addition, this concert acted as a showcase for the band's upcoming release, Missiles. So, even though I have seen The Dears more often than any other band, this night would consist mainly of songs I had never heard performed by musicians I had never seen play. Before even getting to the start of the music, though, the oddity of the concert was magnified by its venue. With Pop Montreal consuming all standard concert locations, this festival event was held in the Masonic Temple, far from my familiar section of the city. Entering the building, we were directed to an old-fashioned, sliding door elevator which took us to the concert room, a spacious hall with ornate decorations and a crowd seated either on pews arranged on raised sides of the floor, on throne-like wooden chairs, or cross-legged on the floor itself. The crowd pointed inward, facing a band at the centre of the room. My late arrival meant that I heard mere seconds of music from opener The World Provider; but the same configuration would hold for The Dears. After some time, The Dears took their position in the centre, where they also configured themselves in an inward-facing circle, starkly lit from below, often in monochrome blue or red. The static arrangement limited the opportunity to take in everything; whoever you had a good view of for the first song was who you would be watching for the remainder of the night. At the end of the afafir, I still looked forward to seeing the band again in a more conventional environment, to witness how they interact with each other and with a crowd. For this night, though, the tight placement worked to create a feeling of participating in something unusual, while letting the emphasis rest on the songs. I had some worries about the sound in the unusual venue, which was channeled through eight outward-facing speakers, paired in corners around the band. In the end, though, it was up to the task. In fact, when Natalia Yanchak took her turn on lead vocals on "Crisis 1 & 2," she sounded more clear in the mix than at the majority of past concerts. This moment came about four songs into the set and marked the point at which I really became absorbed by the performance. Whether this is a reflection on my own wound-up state or the music itself, I cannot say, although the band did make it easier with recognizable songs "Lost in the Plot" and "Bandwagoneers." That's not to say that the new material was lacking, but simply that it is harder to latch on to distinct memories in a stream of unknown songs. To be sure, I have high hopes for Missiles; and what I heard made me more eager, leaving a positive impression, even if the details were lost in my mind. As for the new line-up, that's also hard topic to give a full reaction on. As a big fan of the previous incarnation, I was sorry to hear of the change, although it was nice to see past members Patrick Krief and George Donoso III in attendance at this show. That said, the band has undergone multiple changes before; and Murray's emotional and expressive voice makes a performance definitively a Dears show. The new players are clearly talented; and the few snags that I noticed, such as Murray having to prod new drummer Yann Geoffroy into coming back in on the hi-hat during the set-closing "22: The Death of All Romance," were no more than I would expect from any band kicking off a new tour. An encore consisting of an extended "Meltdown in A Major" saw Murray talk far longer than he usually does (with the previous high mark likely coming while filling time in response to equipment failures), as he introduced the full band. This congenial moment was a good capper to an unusual Dears concert that set more of an easy-going, communal, friendly vibe than their typical intense and expansive presence. The house music that escorted people out of the Masonic Temple was John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over." If this is the rebirth of The Dears, I'm excited to see what follows. <--Prev (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) | Next (Wintersleep)-->Return to Concert ListReturn to Main Page |