When they are good they are very very good, and when they are bad...

As you have likely gathered, I enjoy discovering new bands through live music. Of course there's the radio (mostly CBC, cuz I'm a Canadian, and a dork ;o) and recommendations from friends, but there's nothing like that feeling of being captured by someone onstage who you've never heard of before, picking up their cd and then listening to it in the car non-stop for the next three weeks... Festivals are great spots for this to happen, but the more common (read non-summer) experience of live-band-discovery happens during openers.

Mostly openers are so-so. Come ci Come ca. Fine. sometimes they're awesome and you want to take them home in your pocket (Rah Rah opening for Said the Whale, The Daredevil Christopher Wright opening for Dan Mangan), and every once in a while they just make you mad. because they're wrecking the vibe. seriously. wrecking. it. I went to two shows last weekend covering both ends of the spectrum. And here they are:

Wrecking-the-vibe: One Hundred Dollars opening for Elliot Brood
I love Elliot Brood. I really Really do. And there is nothing that could wreck an Elliot Brood show for me, but One Hundred Dollars came pretty 'effin close. They were alright at first, a little intense but the lead singer's voice was excellent and the guitarist was entertaining, but it was just so.... well weird really. The band members didn't actually seem to like each other very much and the singer acted like she was on heroin. It was like she was starting into your soul, and not in a good way. We were creeped out. And by 'we' I mean we alllllll were creeped out. Every single person around me turned to their friends at least once and literally said "Man, she is creepin' me ouuuuut!" And it just. kept. going. It didn't get less creepy, it just got more so. For almost an hour. A creepy opener for almost an hour. not cool. Thank goodness I love the Brood boys or this might have been an all out wash. Close save.

So-awesome-you-want-to-take-them-home-in-your-pocket: Northcote opening for The Wooden Sky
the following night, on the COMPLETE opposite end of the spectrum... The Wooden Sky were great (though I had my first experience of actually feeling too close as I almost got hit with the guitar neck a few times...), but I had seen them a few times on youtube and was expecting said greatness. Still great, but expected. Northcote was phenomenal and unexpected. Singer Matt Goud is an adorably bearded ginger, who is as friendly as he is talented, and the guitarist and bassist/melodica-ist are equally good-natured and good-skilled. They breezed through a too-short [only because it was awesome, I'm sure it was actually regular-lengthed] set and finished off with a few older songs (one of which I got to play the tambourine for ;o), punctuating the whole thing with cheerful banter, gigantic smiles, and genuine mirth. Their music was beautiful, they were wonderful, and it made the whole evening just vibrate with happiness.

This is what an opening band should be. Heck this is what all bands should be. Thanks Northcote for undoing the momentary disillusionment created by One Hundred Dollars. And thanks for just being generally fantastic.