Review by Alicia Agarrabeitia
Photos by David Thai (@david_thai)
What do you call the rating that is between PG13 and R for sexuality? Despite Rihanna’s Loud tour featuring an elaborate set full of colour and pizazz, as well as relatively strong vocals, the whole show left something to be desired. For example, I wasn’t quite sure how to feel when she went from having her crotch groped continuously during “S&M” to ending it with a cute pillow fight. Tease.
Don’t get me wrong, I know she’s 23 with a lot of young fans and as such needs to keep it slightly PG, but the point is defeated when you raunch it up and then try back-tracking. It also doesn’t help matters when you’re practically naked by song two.
That being said, let’s face it…Rihanna is hot. Her big, light coloured eyes, dusted with shimmering emerald eyeshadow, that foxy red hair blown out with curls….prrrroowww. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the plethora of girls who showed up at Rogers Arena dresses in clothing I didn’t even know you could buy. No really, where do you find such clothing? I mean, I’ve seen bad outfits before, but never so bad that I actually went out of my way to thank the girl sitting beside me for dressing normally.
Anyways, to the music….Rihanna played all the faves. She started strong by hitting us with bright colours and plenty of flashing lights for ”Only girl in the world”, “Disturbia”, and “Shut up and drive”. Afterwards came a slew of sexy songs including “S&M” where she brought a girl up on stage for the last 15 seconds and proceeded to straddle her and feel her up for those 15 seconds before they disappeared under the moving stage. (more…)
Photos by David Thai (@david_thai)
Despite a chaotic few days in Vancouver (Stanely Cup finals…need I say more?), fans and the like still packed Deer Lake Park on Thursday night to see Kid Cudi in action.
I’ve been to several concerts at Deer Lake Park and none have been as full as Cudi’s. That being said, a lot more people than usual were being kicked out for not being able to keep it together. Common guys, what’s the point of coming to a concert if you’re not going to make it passed song three? I on the other hand, got to see what ended up being a pretty good show. It’s not that I didn’t expect it to be good but rather, ”rappers” from Cudi’s generation like to spend a lot of time singing, which not all of them do well. In fact, if you’re a supposed “rapper”, rap and don’t sing. Cudi sang quit a bit and although it wasn’t horrible, I would have enjoyed hearing him drop a few more rhymes.
Nonetheless, Cudi started the show strong with three songs back-to-back, including show opener “Revofev”, which was one of the best songs of the night. Things got pretty mellow between “Sountrack 2 my life” and “Solo Dolo” but the pace picked up again during ”Up up and away” and onward. Rapper Cage came on stage to perform “Maniac” with Cudi and then stayed on to perform his own solo track while Cudi took a break. Cudi also took the time to promote their short film, Maniac, directed by Shia LeBeouf and slated to be released in October.
To be honest, I had no idea who The Cars were when I volunteered to review their latest effort Move Like This. After some research, I figured out they are the masters of “Just What I Needed”. GREAT song. Oldie but very goodie. Other than a few songs that we might all recognize from the 70′s and 80′s, we don’t really know much about the band because their last album was produced in 1987.
So how did a new album come about after 24 years? Well, as per their press release…
“The project’s genesis came in the fall of 2009 as Ric Ocasek considered how to proceed with his latest sheaf of songs, his first batch of material since 2005’s solo Nexterday. As he debated how to record – On his own? With a new group of musicians? – he realized that his best option was the three players with whom he had the most symbiotic relationship.
“I just thought, it’s been a long time since I played with these guys,” Ocasek says, “but they’re the ones that will do the best job. They’re the ones that I wouldn’t have to explain things to, they wouldn’t have to get used to the way I write, they’re already inundated with all that. I’ll just put out a feeler and see if they’d be interested in doing it.””
FYI…the original band also use to have five members; the late Ben Orr was their bassist/co-lead singer. Current member Greg Hawkes took over Orr’s duties.
Move Like This is almost like a blast from the past. The band didn’t veer far from their original sound. They could have tried to stage a comeback that was full of new songs that match a new era, but then the people who know and love them would be put off.
The best tracks on the album by far are “Keep On Knockin’”, “Sad Song”, and “Free”. The rest of the album features hipster-esque songs like “Blue Tip”, and a plethora of (cheesy) 80′s-sounding songs like “Too Late”, “Soon”, and “Take Another Look”.
It’s not a bad album, I just don’t appreciate it as much as a true Cars fan probably does. Plus, none of the songs top “Just What I Needed” so that’s slightly disappointing!
Label: Hear Music/Concord Music
Rating: 5/10
Favourites: Keep On Knockin’, Sad Song, Free
Typical. That’s the only word that comes to mind as I find words to describe the Sam Roberts Band (official new name by the way) latest effort, Collider. It’s not a bad album, in fact, it has a lot of tracks that I’m sure people will highlight as their favourite summer songs. That being said, the album doesn’t offer up anything new, it’s the typical sound we’re use to hearing from the Sam Roberts Band.
When I think of Sam Roberts, I can’t help but think of summer, open-air concerts, patios, light beer, etc. Maybe that’s because I only ever listen to him whilest partaking in any of those things. I won’t be surprised if while on a patio somewhere I hear “Without a Map” or ”Twist The Knife”. I’m sure “The Last Crusade” and “Graveyard Shift” will be the concert favourites. And I bet “No Arrows” or “Longitude” will make it onto some tv show: I’m envisioning two characters laughing away as they drive towards the beach in their convertible.
I suppose I lied when I said that Sam didn’t bring anything new to the table: he brought horns to a few tracks. Actually, I think the tracks with horns, “The Last Crusade” and “Streets of Heaven” are my favourites. Other standouts are “Let It In” with it’s cool rock harmonies, and “I Feel You” which is raw and sultry in The Black Keys kind of way.
Unfortunately, the last few tracks, well actually, almost the last half of the album as a whole, fall a bit flat and as such leave something to be desired.
Nonetheless, as noted before, I’m sure many fans will be content to add some of the band’s new music to their summer playlists.
Label: Universal Music
Rating: 6/10
Favourites: The Last Crusade, Let It In, Graveyard Shift, Streets of Heaven
Review by Alicia
Photos by David Thai (@david_thai)
If someone asked me to describe the Usher concert in one word, my word of choice would be “sex”. Thanks to freedom of speech, I’ll happily use a few more: sex, girls, tight clothing, booty shorts, grinding, washboard abs, and sweat. Oh yeah, and Usher is pretty incredible too.
The show featured a lot of pizazz, it was hard not to have fun. There were moving stages, fireworks, and unexpected explosions which startled a few (me) for sure. Usher had a band accompany him as well as six great backup dancers who must have burnt 10,000 calories each. If anyone needs a backup dancer, call me. Lord knows I need to be burning that many calories a day.
The set list was composed of wide variety of oldies and newbies, all loved alike. The standouts were definitely “You Remind Me” despite the cheesy acting by his lady dancers, “You Make Me Wanna” which is one of my all-time favourite Usher songs, and his lastest hits “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love”, “More”, and “OMG”. Despite the fact that Usher and his dancers worked their asses off all show, the latter three tracks, which were the last three of the night, were the most energetic. I could have done without “Mars v. Venus”, “There Goes My Baby”, and the cheesy interlude for “Let It Burn” where Usher had a heart-to-heart of sorts with the crowd. I was hoping he would take us back to 1997 with “My Way”, but I suppose you win some and lose some.
There was also a Michael Jackson homage, where Usher danced many an MJ move in his sparkly black high tops; his equivalent to what was MJ’s white sparkly glove.
When I think of balloons, I think of clowns. Thankfully, there aren’t any clowns or circus-esque music on The Weeknd’s House of Balloons. Instead, the album offers up sexy beats oiled up by Abel Tesfaye’s falsetto and massaged with straight up lyrics. There is no doubt in my mind that this album has become the soundtrack to many light nights and sexy time adventures. The Weeknd, also known as Toronto’s Abel Tesfaye, self-released his first effort a few months ago and since then he’s gotten nothing but lovin’ for it.
The vibe that emanates from the album is unreal: the listener is transported to a chill place that’s lustful yet depressing at the same time. You want to be there but shouldn’t because it’s addicting. It’s like one of those intense, slightly screwed up relationships: when it’s good, it’s good, when it’s bad, it’s bad. And since it’s bad, let’s make it better by getting high, having sex, and letting “High for This” take us away to the lustful la la land they call “House of balloons”.
I think the album starts off really strong but waivers toward the end. I can pinpoint a feeling or imagine something for the first five songs but after that, everything kind of melds together. For example, “What You Need” is the type of song people listen to before getting freaky whilest “The Morning” brings me visions of a hot Asian girl in a short silk robe. As for the last few songs, an example being ”Loft Music”….meh. Really, that’s the only word that comes to mind.
Aparently House of Balloons is part of a trilogy, the rest of the albums slated to be released in summer and the fall. Until then, check out House of Balloons. It’s sexy and great for the atmosphere.
Label: self-released
Rating: 7/10
Favourites: High For This, Glass Table Girls
Two Door Cinema Club has been on the rise since their inception back in 2009, granted not everyone may be familiar with the band, but they would recognize their songs as they’ve made appearances in countless commercials and television shows. Personally I remember receiving their EP from Kitsuné back in January of ’09, not giving it much thought I gave it a quick scan and was thoroughly impressed with the initial offering and since then they’ve remained on my radar. Spending the past year or so touring and especially putting in a ton of work in the North American market in support of the album Tourist History, we were lucky enough to get an opportunity to chat with TDCC.
Here’s how that conversation went…
What’s difference between touring North America and the rest of the world
When we first started touring America obviously it’s was not as good as everywhere else for us. But now we’ve been to most places around the world and doing the small shows and building it up slowly, which is something we’ve always been very passionate about doing, starting small in every territory. So I guess there are some places still where we’re not very well known asides from Dublin and London. But we’ve been to some cool places, like our show in Rio for example, it was our first time there and it was just crazy, one of the best shows we’ve ever been to. The crowd there just went nuts.
What’s the music scene like back home, is it much different than say in North America?
Yeah I think we have a really strong music scene, there are loads of bands that we grew up with over here that kinda only did well in Belfast and Ireland. So we were lucky in that we had a lot of extra different bands that the world didn’t know about. I think the trouble is being from Ireland it’s still kind of remote, like it’s still separate from the UK so a lot of bands still don’t get noticed by the industry in London, only if they really move over and do lots of tours in the UK , so it’s real unfortunate that a lot more bands don’t get discovered. With the Internet though, it’s hard for people to ignore the music scene.
Yeah, I’m sure that Vancouver will be excited for you guys though because we have a pretty big indie scene here and we basically love anybody from anywhere.
[laughs] Yeah, we’ve never been to Vancouver, which is ridiculous. I didn’t realize how close it was to Seattle until recently because we’ve been to Seattle a couple of times, but we’ve never made it as far as Vancouver. I always just assumed that it was a lot further away.
So I know Tourist History came out officially last April, but can you give me a bit of background on it?
We formed the band when we were 17 and we started recording the music for that album when we were 19 or 20, so we had a few years to get good first before we came up with those songs. We had about 30 songs in that space of time that we could choose from, I guess that’s the good thing about your first album is that you have so many songs to choose from. We’re super happy with the 10 that made the album, we felt they all could’ve been singles, which is what we really wanted. With the recording, we did it in London with a guy by the name of Elliott James. Then we got the tracks and got had them mixed by Phillipe Zadar. We’re super happy that we got to work with those guys and we wouldn’t change anything about the album.
Yeah, with the amount time that you guys had to create this album, what sort of things were you guys able to take away to apply to the next project?
Yeah, I think it’s good to go into the studio with your songs ready and we weren’t just ready. We had just recorded our demos ourselves in the bedroom. But that was a necessity at that time because we didn’t have much money based on studio time, so whenever we were going in the studio, we had to know exactly where we wanted to go with the songs. I think that’s something we’ll always do because it’s good to get a bearing on your song before someone else does.
Diamond Rings is literally as cool as ice (and by ice I mean the kind that rappers rap about, the diamond kind that glitters…a lot). I had the chance to briefly speak with him a little while ago right before his epic Vancouver show. It was refreshing speaking to someone who really doesn’t care what people think because at the end of the day, what people think doesn’t define him: he defines himself and being himself makes him happy and creative, and in turn, brings us fans some rockin’ electro-pop ear candy.
Hi! How are ya? How’s the tour going?
Diamond Rings: Amazing, having a good time. I’m with PS I Love You. It’s great.
What’s it like being on tour all the time, city to city, culture to culture?
Diamond Rings: It’s kind of like being in the circus. I don’t know. It’s so many things. There are so many responsibilities every day. It’s a really big balancing act but it’s fun.
What’s the most important thing you get out of touring?
Diamond Rings: Probably just the feeling of being able to express myself fully and honestly every night to a room of people who want to see me be me. That’s the reward at the end of the day.
On the subject of you getting to be you every night, how would you describe yourself and your music and what do you think attracts your fans?
Diamond Rings: People are attracted to seeing something exciting, different, and unique but also something that is real. I guess realness is an ambiguous term, you can’t really explain. Some people just have it and are able to express themselves that way.
