Live Music Review - Wolf Parade

Yes, watching Cougs play the Aztecs was a major reason to make the trek to Seattle , but I was far more excited to see the band Wolf Parade. Since their debut album "Apologies to Queen Mary"(2005), the Montreal quartet have toured sporadically, but several of the band members have started other successful bands. I expected the band to sound somewhat out of practice as a result, but I was sweetly surprised.

After two solid opening acts, Siberian and Holy F***, the small Capitol Hill bar, Neumos, began to seem a lot smaller. I clamored for a position as close the the front and center of the stage as possible. Unaware that the band had duel vocalists, I was shocked to find out that the lead singer's unmistakable voice was the work of two people. Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug, the two vocalists sound very similar in their unconventional off-kilter ways. But the band introduced new songs, showing a definite separation in the vocalist's styles. Krug's new songs were deliberate and slow paced, while Boeckner ventured further into his style of hectic yokel/yelling with his tunes. The venue, which was a glorified box with beer, seemed unimportant compared to the music. It was sweaty, it was cramped and uncomfortable, but it didn't matter. Boeckner said it best, "When I refer to 'dude' I mean it as the crowd as a whole... If you all were a dude at a party, you would be the really nice guy." And as one "dude" we jumped and hollered to the songs that we didn't yet know, and we screamed and jumped in circles and danced to the songs that we did know.

It was like a being in a hidden club in an apocalyptic world devoid of color, art, emotion, and the only form of expression left was music. Krug's voice, especially during the emotionally stirring closing song, "I'll Believe in Anything" was the voice of he underground revolution (concert goers) as they (us) piled into the venue to feel the heat, feel the awkward shoulder to shoulder contact, and feel the collective thumping of several hundred bodies, singing along with the music that united our cause.

Here's the video "I'll Believe in Anything"