Surfer Blood + …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – La Tulipe – 01.05.11
Self-proclaimed, “sloppy pop” trio Parlovr have taken the stage. Sights of fury take over as whips of long greasy hair cloak the faces of both guitarists. Hard to say how many shows Parlovr have clocked in this city of ours, and how big or small those respective venues were. Regardless, Louis David Jackson proudly grins to the crowd as each song concludes, even when met with indifferent applause. Highlight of the set occurs in indie pop fashion after Jackson spends a couple of awkward minutes searching for a Jane in both French and English. “That’s me!” a male crowd member cries out a handful of times. “Alright, alright I’m fucking singing to you man.” Jackson grins.
Post happy-to-be-there act, art rock veterans, …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead take the stage, and yes, the size of the crowd increases just a bit. The set begins a bit stale, and remains so through the first couple of tracks. The band then works their way to older material much to the crowd’s pleasure. The cluster huddled together at the edge of the stage seem to find an emotional connection to Conrad Keely as he spouts out lyrics like, “How much fun to be drifting along with the weight of the sun in my hand.” And as I realize I’m failing to be impressed, I sympathetically wonder if this is how most people feel when I try to convince them Brand New lyrics are fucking poetry, man. The still sparse but sentimental crowd sing along on 2005 track, “Will You Smile For Me” further proving that sometimes you just can’t ever let go of high school bands, (even if you should).
Leaving their homes at the merch table, fresh indie rock meat, Surfer Blood, take the stage. Having taken over the Internet and its respective blogs in 2010 (the Internet by the way is something lead guitarist and vocalist John Paul Pitts tells me they no longer fear) with their debut album Astro Coast, the band returns to Montreal for the second time. To the crowd’s Indie-Nerd delight the band holds a certain Scott Pilgrim-esque appeal. What I mean is – does anyone know the respective ages of these musicians? Because they look young. Which makes it all the more impressive considering how hard working and mature they both sound and seem. Though mature takes a side note when Pitts is iced pre the performance of a brand new song (one of many). The age question is answered once Pitts prefaces a song as something for, “all the original users of askjeeves.com.” With a mix of fuzzy chords and 90s alt-pop the band is spewing out catchy hit after catchy hit. Highlight tracks of the evening are “Harmonix” with its pleading, “pleases,” “Take it Easy” with it’s tints of garage rock, and first single, “Swim” which had their loyal fans jumping away. If the word spreads as it should, I have a feeling their next show will in fact be to a suitably packed house. And in the meantime, Pitts notes, they are in fact “available for birthdays and Bar Mitvahs.”
– Sruti I
Surfer Blood
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Parlovr
Photography by Justine Israel
