Nü Sensae shred and pulverize the Maple Stage West 4th Avenue, between MacDonald Street and Burrard Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
The 2012 Khatsahlano Music + Arts Festival, Vancouver's largest free outdoor music event of the year, took place the Saturday before last. With over forty mostly local performers featured between ten blocks on West 4th Avenue, I did my best to catch all of my favourite bands, and that I did with surprisingly few conflicts.
The festival ran from 12 P.M. to 8 P.M., but the day began for me with Juvenile Hall, a three-piece pop-punk band that takes cues from the Ramones (obvious by the bassist's T-shirt) and Shonen Knife (based on JH's sound alone). Catchy songs about candy, love and getting high delivered with more chops than the typical pop-punk band made Juvenile Hall one of the top highlights of my day. And they gave away free buttons! Chyeah!
Next up on the same stage (the Yew Stage) were Weed, my most anticipated band of the day. That this was my first time seeing them after having missed them three times, I was pretty damned stoked. However, Weed were also the most disappointing band of the day for me. Not only did they play the shortest set out of everyone I saw at the festival, and they didn't play "Eighty," one of the top two songs I wanted them to play, but the live versions of their other songs all kind of sounded the same. Weed did live up to the ubiquitous description of them as grungy sludge-pop, though: they layered everything on thick, particularly Hugo Noriega's slabs of fat bass. That said, Weed were one of the last bands I expected to see a couple of toddlers dancing to in the front row. Weed couldn't have possibly been good for the kids' ears: Weed were possibly the loudest band I heard at Khats, unless my ears had adjusted to face-melting levels of volume by the time I saw Nü Sensae.
The final band I saw at the Yew Stage, immediately following Weed, were Peace. I'd looked forward to Peace's unconventional, danceable, Q and Not U-style rhythms and melodies, but Peace were more post-punky live than on record. And singer "Lt." Frank Dickens' vocals sounded much plainer live. Peace were still pretty good, though, as I do love my post-punk; they just weren't entirely what I'd wanted.
Finally moving from the Yew Stage, I saw possibly my favourite Van-band, punk trio Nü Sensae. They were exceedingly better than the first time I saw them, when they opened for Best Coast at the Biltmore at the end of May. Maybe it was a difference in sound systems, but at the Biltmore, while Nü Sensae were good, pretty much every note in every song sounded indistinguishable. This time, however, each song actually stood out, the band was clear, and they didn't seem to just blitz through their set. I didn't keep track of the time, but I was surprised by how long it felt like they played - much longer than their Biltmore set felt. Maybe their new songs are just more dynamic - fleshed out - and kick more ass, and that's why they stood out. And despite bassist/singer Andrea Lukic's initial mic problems (her mic was initially so low, she was completely inaudible), her screaming seemed even more eviscerating than ever. Nü Sensae were definitely my favourite performance of the day.
The final band I saw at the Khatsahlano Music + Arts Festival was indie pop-rock band Pleasure Cruise. Like Peace, I'd looked forward to them quite a bit, but also like Peace, vocals were not Pleasure Cruise's strong suit live. Otherwise, Pleasure Cruise were pretty on the ball: fun, rocking, and they seemed like nice people, constantly joking with the crowd and even giving a shout-out to Nardwuar who was in the crowd. And they played a Misfits song. How rad!
So, I missed all but two of the High Drops' songs; Capitol 6 seemed to have either been taken off of the festival's line-up, were poorly advertised or, despite having played the Khats Fest launch party at Zulu Records back in May, were never scheduled to play, and the Dirtbombs-evoking Ballantynes who are just GOD-AWESOME were moved to a timeslot that conflicted with some of the other bands I wanted to see, but my first Khatsahlano Music + Arts Festival could not have been through and through funner. Forty bands over eight hours, I was bound to have missed some things. And it was all free, so how can I really complain?
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