This tour is against fascism...
I witnessed an excellent Canadian based concert last night with my buddy Justin at the Conservatory in OKC.
The first band was actually a band from Oklahoma called Ice Walters. They weren't too bad, I've heard worse opening bands. I wouldn't run out and buy their album right now but they have potential.
Next up was probably the best performance of the night with a band called Arcade Fire. Arcade Fire is based out of Montreal as are the Unicorns, the headlining band and the reason I went to the show. They are a six piece with 4 males and 2 females. They dressed sort of like the rentals, all in dorky looking 'Sunday' clothes. They were beautifully geeky. They featured a violin player and a keyboard player who was a girl with a frilly black dress and a pink bow in her hair. The nerdiest fellow played accordian on several tracks, he had some great David Byrne style herky-jerky body movements to go along with it. When they started playing and screaming their lyrics in harmony at the top of their lungs it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, absolutely great sound. In several ways they reminded me of the Broken Social Scene with more of a traditional song structure. The member's of Arcade Fire would often switch instruments after each song. The lead singer was outstanding, excellent emotive vocal sound. This band went to further prove the theory that Canada is the new Brooklyn of music. You can get a few of their mp3's on the website, but they are no where as good as seeing them live. I will definitely pick up the full length they have scheduled for release in September. I did get a 7" at the show that was decent but was kind of old and not near as good as the material in the show.
The Unicorns came out next and they began with a monologue/free verse poetry type of thing starting with "This tour is against fascism". It was a good performance. Many songs sounded a lot different than the album since they are based on electronic post production in several cases. It was a lot of fun though. Their was a few lulls when they were working on their instruments and one of them was trying to tell a joke. He said they had read it in a bathroom stall in Texas. He said "Why doesn't Texas fall of into the ocean? Because Oklahoma sucks". That wasn't a smart move, part of the crowd started to turn on him. But in an effort to extend an olive branch he said Oklahoma can be the honorary "12th or 11th province of Canada" (he wasn't exactly sure how many provinces were in Canada at the time) which several didn't see as a good thing. A few songs later there was another lull and the same singer said he couldn't continue because a girl in the front row was talking too loud. He kept saying he was sorry to interrupt her by playing music. He finally gave her the microphone and she said she was sorry but someone had just "elbowed her in the titty, but the Unicorns rock." It was a good time, Canadian people make me laugh.