crazybobbles

Man what a gig, I originally got into M. Ward from a friend and instantly fell in love with his latest album Hold Time. Now he’s upset that I went to his gig and he wasn’t able to hehe. So here’s a lovely review about them to make it all up.

Originally I was going to catch Chairlift play at Puregroove Cafe but I decided to go and queue up to get a good spot in the venue, I didn’t want to repeat the mistake at Neko Case where we weren’t at front for photo action. I got my front row spot and camped out waiting for Anika, Adam and Fiona to pop by.

Turns out the waiting wasn’t really that neccessary (damn Neko Case fans for getting me all paranoid, you made me miss a free gig!). We all got a nice spot and checked out the support band Sleeping States, they were alright. I particularly liked the crazy vocal loop pedal action and anything loop pedal related. Though it was no match for Andrew Bird’s epic loop pedalness.

Before M. Ward started all the photographers were warned that we weren’t allowed to take photos (only photopassers for the first 3 songs) at all because the band would be seriously distracted and wouldn’t play if there were cameras about. It felt really weird at first because I’ve never really seen a band do that, but hey, it’s their wishes so it’s only best to respect it. I took shots during the first 3 songs and then stopped (with perhaps a few ninja shots here and there).

The first 3 songs M. Ward performed on his own with his acoustic and slowly the rest of the band joined in with him. Occasionally M. Ward would head to the electric piano whilst the rest of his band filled the stage.

They played a lot of Home Time tracks including Fisher of men, Never had nobody, Rave on (by Buddy Holly), Epistemology and Oh Lonesome Me. I really loved Fisher of men and Rave on. They did a few instrumentals and jams which were fun to boogie and rock on to. It was a really solid setlist (though I wanted them to do Let’s Dance by David Bowie but it wasn’t played :()

More stuff about photography during the gig. At one point of the show M. Ward kindly asked a photographer to stop taking photos as he had his camera not so subtly pointing at the band with a red shiny dot (obviously trying to record a track). I think at that point I pretty much was convinced that they really felt uncomfortable with cameras going off and what not, this included random infra red lights pointing at them and flashes emitting here and there, though he did mention it during the show too and which was followed by a joke that people’s cameras would combust if they tried shooting them hehe.

The good thing about the lack of photography throughout the show was that I was able to really enjoy the gig and dance along to the bluesy goodness that was M. Ward. Some guy took their setlist when they were leaving (ready to come back for an encore) but then was confronted with one of the band members going “Oh no, someone STOLE my setlist” (or something along the lines) whilst staring at the guy who took it, it was pretty funny seeing that in action (especially when I was going to take it myself hehe)!

They finished the show with Rave on (the setlist says magic trick but I don’t recall them playing that). It was definitely an amazing show and I definitely can’t wait to see them play again (this time I’ll not bother with the cameras (if that’s even possible)).