On a cold, Thursday night in Winnipeg the last thing you want to be doing is leaving your house. But the temptation of my new favorite band is too much to resist, so the lady-friend and I head to the Pyramid Cabaret for a night filled with the most fun I’ve had at a rock show in about a year.
Bumping into friends, well wishers and random characters from the Winnipeg music and film community, we anxiously await Kelowna, BC’s Ladyhawk who’ve revived the rock lifestyle of old with stories of beer soaked parties, awe-inspiring high kicks and the bass player’s mammoth head of hair. Eventually, the band takes the stage to what seems like disappointment. Ladyhawk, you see, is a buzz band; but not the buzz band that the art/bar star crowd is here to see tonight. They are touring with alt-prog darlings Black Mountain. Ladyhawk actually gets heckled at some points (much to my embarrassment) but the band play it off like it’s another day at the office. Starting with the opener from their new record Shots, “I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying” gets the heads bobbing and the hips swaying. The band blows through songs from their two and a half disc catalogue like they’re jamming in their basement, totally confident and improvisational. They make banter with each other and the audience. They seem to be enjoying themselves. They play “S.T.H.D.” (a personal favorite) and “Fear” (a sing-along delight) and prove that the record is, as they have put it “fucking dark.”
At one point, a guy I sort of know comes up to me and starts yelling to me; I can’t hear him at all so I just nod. He proceeds to jump on stage, putting his arm around Sean Hawryluk (the aforementioned bassist) and thusly, I snap his picture before Hawryluk boots him off stage without missing a beat. The difficult thing about opening for a band that falls into a slightly different category than you is that you might not share the same fans. The thing about a Ladyhawk show is that by the end of the set they have won over most of the people who have never heard their name outside of the Marvel comics’ universe.
After the set I banter for a moment with Hawryluk, who seems genuinely happy that I came, enjoyed it and wish to purchase their EP. A hard working band that rocks this hard and enjoys what they do definitely deserve all the respect and praise they are getting.
Shortly thereafter, Black Mountain takes the stage. Maybe it was the opening slot for Coldplay, maybe it was the track on the Spiderman 3 CD, or maybe it was the smoke machine, but these guys seemed a little bit douchey. Playing their first few songs completely in the dark (save for one red light) they delivered a carbon copy of the record on tracks like “Stay Free” and “Stormy High”. A microphone malfunction seemed like the end of the world to them. They appeared timid, worried and lost on this tiny stage. Then the fight broke out.
I looked behind me at one point to see that rando’ I sort of know, being held back by four theatre students and wielding a bottle of Standard (the choice cheep Winnipeg beer) high above his head screaming “I’ll fucking kill you,” while another gentleman was being held back by even more skinny concertgoers. With my camera slung around my neck I first grabbed him by the throat, attempting to talk him down. Then, realizing the bottle could do more damage, I removed it from his hand and pounded it down on the foot of the stage. The band had actually stopped their set at this point, muttering pleas of “come on man, a bottle? This is hippie shit!” Eventually they started up again but never seemed to recover. During epics like “No Hits”, they meandered along, delivering vacant and vapid stares from all corners of the stage. This appears to be a band that is incapable of enjoying themselves. Perhaps it was just an off night, perhaps it was fatigue, but when I looked at chanteuse Amber Webber’s face, I saw boredom, fear and nothing going on behind those eyes.
I wanted to like this band, but their re-playing of their album wasn’t worth the standing and waiting that their hour-plus set entailed. I kept waiting for the pay off, but I was left built up and anxious. I think what they were going for was a Velvet Underground and Nico vibe, but just because you have a girl who stands and does nothing with a few ego-maniacs, that doesn’t make you John Cale.
In closing – Ladyhawk are a band you need to know if you enjoy any kind of sloppy, fun guitar rock with quirky lyrics and a great live set. Black Mountain is better experienced on your headphones.
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