A little background information as per the glorious Wikipedia,
"Interpol is American indie rock band formed in 1997 in New York City. The band's original line-up consisted of Paul Banks (vocals, guitar), Daniel Kessler (guitar, vocals), Carlos Dengler (bass guitar, keyboards) and Greg Drudy (drums, percussion). Drudy left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Sam Fogarino. In 2010, shortly after recording finished for the band's fourth album, Dengler left to pursue personal projects. While the band is officially now a trio, they have recruited David Pajo as their new bassist, and Brandon Curtis as their new keyboardist and backing vocalist for their current tour."The fantastical Wikipedia, which we all worship, also told me that they are currently working with American music producer, DJ and electronic avant-pop artist, Matthew Dear. I was shocked to hear that, and then the epiphany came. I love Matthew Dear, especially his album entitled ASA Breed, as well as the remix craze that came with his songs. It seems that every DJ or electro-pop artist has remixed one of his songs, from Hot Chip to Fourtet. More on the epiphany later.
And a little of my personal history, I found the band through Radio Blog Club in 2007 and have been listening to their music ever since. I just can't seem to get sick of their songs, it's a little hypnotic, and when conversing with the other concert-goers, I found that other people also have experienced such hypnotism of awesomeness. I was really upset when I found out that they played Virgin Festival on Toronto Island in 2007 with two of my other favourite bands, M.I.A. and Tokyo Police Club. It's actually pretty funny that I barely cared about the headliners, as is normally the case when I attend these little festival shindigs. The smaller stages and bands are usually much more entertaining because they seem to have something to prove, more or less, and the crowds around the stage are less crowded/crazy with eternal love of the band. Therein with my small stature I can get closer to the front and slide into my rightful place as crazy girl in the front who won't stop screaming all the lyrics and looks like she will pass out soon. As it well should be.
Anyway I just went so off topic, but long story short I was super happy about Interpol coming back to Toronto and I knew that I was going to be right in front of the microphone as Paul sang those three magic words from Antics' "Length of Love." He and I sang in perfect unison (to my ears), "Combaaaaaaaat Salaaaciousssss Remooooovaaaaaallll." And when I say sang, I really mean scream. It was kind of life-changing.
Oh silly youtube user, you misspelled the song title. ><
But I am getting ahead of myself. The night started when we emerged in twilight out of Union Station to search out a cab which would take us to the Sound Academy. I hate taking the TTC buses when I have somewhere to be and time is of the essence, so don't call me spoiled. Especially when I say that I have probably sat in about 10 Toronto taxis in my life. So there. But anyway, we got into the cab and started chatting with the, oh, say 40-year-old Indian driver. Somehow we began discussing the intimate details of my friend's marriage plans with her boyfriend of seven years, and how they were to be married during a backpacking trip through Europe. The driver completely believed that both of us were the ripe old age of 29 that we proclaimed to be, and we just laughed and laughed.
We arrived at the doors of the Sound Academy at 6:20 and there were exactly five people ahead of us in line. I duly noted that the guy in front of us looked almost identical to Matthew Lillard, and time went by pretty fast until we were finally allowed into the warm depths of the concert hall. Everybody seemed pretty chills as we watched the show, and two people struck up conversations with me which was a nice surprise considering I usually initiate the conversations. I had been to the Sound Academy just two weeks prior to this show, to see the Decemberists and due to my crazy concert-going attitude, I attained the spot directly front row and center on that occasion as well as this one. T-shirt in tow (the newest addition to my apparel-formed concert history of the past five years), I was psyched for them to finally show their faces on stage.
I found myself surprisingly impressed by the filler music between sets. They played "Stillness Is The Move" by Dirty Projectors (one of my favourite songs), "Walk In The Park" by Beach House, "Cover Me (Slowly)" by Deerhunter, and a song that sounded oddly like Matthew Dear, since his voice is rather unique, to put it mildly. As I have mentioned, I now realize that I was probably right, since he and Interpol are collaborating in future. Cool! Meanwhile, I think my friend was getting annoyed that I kept guessing all the songs.
The opening band, as we later found out, was held up for some reason and couldn't make it to the show. their last-minute replacement, Low Level Flight, was not so good. A lot of loud noise and not much else, but I'll have to do some more research before I make my final judgement. Of course, sometimes bands can sound really weird when you see them live, and then totally different when you listen to them through speakers at home.
Interpol finally strolled onstage at around 10:30, looking rather dapper in their three-piece suits and rock n' roll haircuts. I noticed that Paul had cut his hair at some point between now and when I last saw a photograph of him, and it was quite a welcome change. I had mentioned to my friend earlier that none of the band members were much to look at (which of course does not matter in the slightest!) but as soon as I saw this haircut my opinion changed.
Okay, yes the picture on the right is super low quality because it was taken with my craptastic camera, but his hair was sort of like a semi-grown out mini mohawk with a mullet in the back. That sounds really gross, right? But it...just worked somehow! Or maybe I was just so happy to see the look on the left go away forever. Not sure.
So they played almost all of my favourite songs, and I was super happy that the girl beside me was really into it and dancing and screaming along with me. Ecstatic as I was, I didn't really want to be the only one making a fool of myself. Yay, random girl!
It was cool of my friend to come to the concert with me, especially since she didn't really get into the music beforehand (which may have also been attributed to a pinch of laziness on her part :P) but she knew how much the band meant to me and that was awesome. In return I agreed to take her to the Ke$ha concert in April (woo-hoo :/) but my spirits lightened a little when she compromised and said we could see Tiesto instead. The music itself is about equal to me, but I think Tiesto will be a little less crazy and less full of crazy preteen girls. My ideal show, naturally.
Stupid TTC!!! Argh! We got out of the concert at midnight and walked to the bus stop. The bus came in about 15 minutes which was not that bad, and we got to the subway pretty soon. And then, to my horror/disgust/surprise/punching the wall of the subway car with my fist, there was an announcement stating that the train would become southbound at the Eglinton stop. That meant, in order to get home, we would have to take a bus to Finch which would take way longer and furthermore, I had no idea which bus to take. Fun times considering the trains are supposed to run normally until at least 1:00 and it was 12:45. Fail. So we walked up to the buses and I gave up on the bus signage after oh, about five seconds. We got on the first bus we saw and asked if it was going to Finch. Score one for us, we were on the right bus. Score one for TTC, the bus seemed to feel the need to pull into every single subway underground bus terminal thing on the way to Finch, which seemed preposterous considering the subway was supposed to have stopped running at 12:30! Whatever. I was so tired the next day, but it was totally worth it.
And if you're wondering, yes, my concert stories usually do contain about 30% concert material and 70% adventure material. Hope you enjoyed and found it somewhat interesting.
I leave you with my favourite song off the new self-titled album.
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