I remember back in kindergarten, when the teacher was showing us how to write numbers. I drew mine with two circles: one big circle at the bottom, and smaller circle at the top. I liked it, it reminded me of a snowman. But the teacher wasn't as amused as I was. She told me it was wrong and it had to be done with one single curved line. "Don't take the pen off the page when drawing an eight!" she said. I heeded her advice and from then one wrote my eights without breaking the line. Now my eights look strange and deformed.
Somehow, eight manages to remain my favourite number. For some reason it seems aesthetically pleasing to me. Go figure, I mean everyone has there reasons for things, and I just think that an 8 looks neat.
Oh, yeah! The Ford Plant. Yes. I forgot...
Many of you may question how I could forget the Ford Plant, and the show I saw, witnessed, (was pummeled by?) Well I didn't, I was kidding. This show was incredible (well, most aspects), so let's get down to business.
A large group of us went to the FP on Friday: Bryan, Reid, Alex, Matt, Rob, Isaac, Nolan, and I. We walked in, and sat on the couch. I presently moved over to the piano and started to play Viorar vel til Loftarasa by Sigur Ros. As the soothing waves of Icelandic music poured from the old ragged instrument, a rather burly fellow sauntered in. And by "burly fellow" I mean scary tattooed buff guy.
"Where's the owner, Tim?" he asked me.
"Oh sweet bits of cod," I thought. "This guy's going to kill Tim and shut us down!"
"Uh, I think he's over there." I said, waving my hand in the direction of the window, outside of which Tim stood.
The guy kept asking people until someone told him exactly where Tim was. Tension was mounting, we could all feel it. The man "wanted to speak to " Tim. Oh crap, this was it, he was going to knife Tim!
Slickit! Blorp! Klunk! Tim was on the ground, quivering. The man had done away with Tim in a single stroke of his switch blade.
Fortunately, in real life, the guy was just worried that his bike was going to get damaged by the jerks who were breaking bottles at the back of the buildings. The two spoke for a couple minutes, and everything seemed worked out. Hooray for talking about things!
Happy that the show could continue without a dead Tim, I proceeded to enter into the show room. Clarence was setting up on the stage. I had never heard of Clarence before, but the singer/guitarist held a strong semblance to the singer/guitarist of the Quantum Physique. I'm not sure if they were the same guy, but who knows?
Clarence was having trouble with the mic, so the rest of the band just warmed up. On stage we had a keyboardist, a bassist, a guitarist, and a drummer. The keyboardist and the drummer interested me. The keyboardist had his keys run through his laptop via, what I assume was, a MIDI cable. Hooray for extra sound modulation!
The drums that were used were electronic, which is a first for me at the Ford Plant. I have never seen electronic drums in use prior to that set. Mind you, this was, what I felt was a negative aspect of the show, which I will touch on later.
The mic was still not working, but they played a song anyways. It was a really interesting electronic jam, the drums were on an interesting setting and sounded very drum and bass. Finally, the mic was working and the show went into full gear. The band played an odd mix of electronic music and metal, it is kind of hard to explain. The synthetic drums added the electronic touch, while the songs themselves had aspects of prog and metal.
Unfortunately, the mic had the complete opposite effect than intended. Instead of fleshing out the sound and making the songs more interesting, I found that the singer did not add a thing. In fact, I would say that he detracted greatly from the rest of the band. As a guitarist he was fine, but he could not sing.
As I said, the drums were a bit of a negative aspect. The drummer played fine, and his lines were interesting, but there was something awry. An electronic drum set can, by no means, sound better than a real drum set. The crash sounded way too synthetic, and sometimes it just sounded cheesy. When playing real drums you get all the subtle nuances, you get the sounds of the true drummer. The electronic drums paled in comparison.
After they finished we went outside, and Matt said something that I agree with completely. Clarence's opening instrumental jams were more intriguing than their actual songs.
The crowds were getting larger outside of the Ford Plant, and I was anxious to get a good spot for the Torcus. We walk back in and there is a large amount of people there already, but we manage to squeeze our way into a good spot. Now, I've reviewed the Torcus before (See: Ep. 4 Tile-Stealing Mutha-Shut Yo Mouth! -Ed. which is me (but is actually I, Matt who is currently proofreading this post)) and I've commented on their incredible performance. This time around it was the same rambunctious live show as before, kicks and jumps and windmills. Mind you, this time Alex Iarocci did the windmill for, what seemed like, 2 minutes straight. I would like to touch on the songs themselves. Last time I reviewed them, I boldly stated that they played mostly all covers, I was wrong! My apologies to the Torcus, for they write their own material, and mostly play that. Their songs sound straight out of the sixties, and they play them with passion. I think that's the key word here, the Torcus took the stage and played their fucking hearts out. And not only that, but they sent that energy from the stage into the crowd. The band was exhausted when they were finished, and we were exhausted.
Something that Reid pointed out was that everyone in the band got a solo. Alex tore up the stage with his crazed guitar antics, Myles showed his technique and melodic soloing with his red arch-top, and as Myles and Alex were switching instruments, Andrew morphed his drumming from the song into a drum solo that not only filled in some silence devoid of rock, but showed that he was no slouch at percussion.
The FP was filled with this crazy vibe during that set. At one point, I turned to see Reid with his eyes as wide as dinner-plates, jaw-open at the stage. The crowd was jumping and dancing, Scott at one point just went limp in the middle of everyone so they had to push him around. At the end of their set, Mr. Iarocci told us that we could be all be "Torcumaniacs" if we got a free pin from them, and then he let out a series of short shouts. It was so cool. Oh, and Myles had kickass side-burns. Awesome.
The headliner hadn't played yet, and I was tired, hot, and sweaty. We went over to the Imperial to get some drinks, and walked back to the FP, I was rather pumped for Born Ruffians. After the disappointment of them not playing a couple weeks ago, I was really getting ready to hear them. We got into the FP at just the right time as we got to be right in the middle of everyone. Born Ruffians started to play and I was immediately taken in by their sound, they reminded me of Animal Collective in some ways. So, already I was liking their set and it was only the first song. The whole set was danceable and ultimately enjoyable. All three band members moved around and did their thing. The drum was nuts, he was just firing off those beats. The guitar tones were quite agreeable to the ear and the singer had a very interesting voice, while the bass riffs added a nice bounciness to the music. Everyone in the band seemed absolutely essential to the sound. They played this one odd song that would start off fast and slow down, and then go back to being fast and then slow down again. I don't know what song it was, but I was intrigued by its strangeness.
For me, one of the highlights of their set was "Foxes Mate For Life" being one of the only songs I kind of knew by them. I just love the bass in that song. People were singing along and it was an altogether great time.
See, I said "altogether" so there had to be a problem. Was it the band? No. Was it the people in the crowd? Yes. A couple times, Born Ruffians had to tell the audience not to push towards the stage because people were almost falling on the stage. It's too bad when the band feels uncomfortable, but the drunk people stopped being idiots and were good. Also, an odd amount of people were falling over. I saw maybe three or four people topple into the crowd, which is strange because usually I don't see anyone topple.
During this set, the vibe got crazier. Everyone was getting into the music and more so. Unfortunately, one lady got a little too into it and ended up punching me in my man bits. Thanks lady. Eh, but what could be more rock and roll than groin injury?
Finally, at the end of the night, I was completely done. I was tired and sweaty, but filled with a sense of fulfillment. We got to witness an incredible night of music. With the Torcus' rock and Born Ruffians' oddness, it made the perfect night. My friends who had never been received the perfect welcome with these two bands.
I am actually still sore from that show, and I won't soon forget it. I think the best way to end this review is to quote something Alex Iarocci said: "WOO!" Woo, indeed Alex, woo indeed.
-Lucas Thurston
