Come For Seapony, Stay For Memoryhouse

March 10, 2012
The Waldorf Hotel
Vancouver, British Columbia

The night started with a Vancouver band called Jay Arner. Well, it was fronted by a guy named Jay Arner, but he introduced his whole band as "Jay Arner." I could have sworn I heard Seapony members refer to him later as "Christian," though … Anyway, on drums was Rose Melberg of Tiger Trap cult fame, one of the original 90s twee pop bands, and on guitar was Seapony's Danny Rowland. It was only Jay Arner's third show ever, but they sounded really good - really crisp, every instrument discernable from the others. Their songs were feel-good pop rock to the max, but they also sounded pretty unique for twee pop if only to the extent that their songs were just a bit more complex and unpredictable than most twee pop (twee being a style that can sound quite homogenous even within the same act).

After a short break, it was time for Seattle's Seapony, the band I went to see. They sounded pretty much how I expected them to: almost perfect but a bit rough around the edges - not so rough that it interfered with how much I was able to enjoy them though. They played ten songs off of their twelve-song debut LP Go with Me (Hardly Art, 2011), but unfortunately for me, one of the two songs they decided to cut was "Always," one of my top two Seapony songs and the song that got me into them. I was pleasantly semi-surprised when Rose joined Seapony to sing their encore cover of the Field Mice's "Emma's House." I say semi-surprised because I'd forgotten that "Emma's House," one of my favourite songs ever, was a live Seapony staple.

Finally, it was time for the night’s headliners Toronto's Memoryhouse. I actually might have enjoyed Memoryhouse more than Seapony. At the very least, Memoryhouse may have been the second most surprisingly good performance I've ever seen, behind Final Fantasy, and that's saying something because Final Fantasy kicked ass, and I only liked one song on Memoryhouse's debut album The Slideshow Effect (Sub Pop, 2012) before I saw them.

I'd always expected atmospheric dream pop shows to be pretty nondescript, all of the details drowned in an amorphous sea of electronic textures to the point where I can’t tell who's doing what. But at Memoryhouse, I could hear everything: every time Denise Nouvion's mic reverberated; every key she pressed on her keyboard; Evan Abeele's guitar parts which, despite his use of various pedals, distinctly sounded like guitar and not the multitude of synthesized sounds from Denise's keyboard; and the drums were so bold and crisp yet never hard on the ears.

Speaking of boldness, I'd also always expected atmospheric dream pop shows to be pretty quiet and un-engaging, smooth textures resulting in a lack of tension and thus a lack of a sense of liveliness. But not only were Memoryhouse clear; they were loud too. And they rocked - hard enough to warrant an incredibly casual dance competition for a prize (you'd have to ask the winner(s?) what that prize was - if there was a winner. If there was a prize). I especially didn't expect that of Memoryhouse, since their album is so tepid (or placid, more positively) that it can hardly keep my attention; even after listening to it after the show, the album doesn't fully grab me, though it does now more than before. Even the apropos grainy, super-zoomed in stock/home-video footage that was projected behind the band during their entire set didn't damp the energy.

Also lumped somewhere into Memoryhouse's set were a couple of covers, although I couldn’t identify either of them. One was supposedly a Country & Western song, but they totally dissolved it into another flood of ambience. Then, at the end of their exactly fifty-minute set, with ten minutes to spare before the 11 P.M. curfew, they had enough time for two encores, although they said by that point, they'd pretty much run out of songs. I could have sworn their last song was one they’d already played, and before that, Evan teased us with the intro of "Stairway To Heaven." Again, if there was another cover in the last ten minutes of Memoryhouse's set, I couldn't tell.

If there are four things I've learned at this show, it's these: Always get to shows as soon as doors open. Based on all of my previous experiences at the Waldorf, I decided go to this show pretty late, but Jay Arner started playing half-an-hour after the doors opened; always grab set lists A.S.A.P. I got the show schedule and Seapony's set list, but even though Memoryhouse's set list was a foot in front of me, I decided to wait a couple of minutes before grabbing it. By the time I decided to make my move, a stagehand had started quickly closing the curtains; as simple as some music may sound, it's sometimes more complicated than I think. Finally, and most importantly, Memoryhouse has taught me that dream pop shows don't suck.

Click here to view more photos of Memoryhouse at the Waldorf.