Coming up with the top five concerts wasn't that difficult (though I could have very easily made a top eight...) but it was pretty difficult trying to rank them! there have been so many great shows this year, and I have only been to handful of those put on, and only ones in Ottawa, Guelph and Montreal! It makes me happy to think of all the other amazing shows other people got to go see (even the ones I missed out on because I found out about them too late- like Northcote and Library Voices back in April- man that concert would have been awesome!). If you didn't get out to many live shows, consider making it one of your resolutions for 2012, or even better, one of the resolutions you actually keep!
Twenty twelve is looking good so far as I've already got a good ten or eleven shows to look forward to in the next few months. I've also recently become a contributor to Canadian Indie Music website Grayowl Point so you can catch my Ottawa-Montreal area concert reviews there starting mid-January.
But for now...
1
Library Voices - Summer of Lust - Casa Del Popolo, Montreal, October 26, 2011
So my sister Krista will be absolutely thrilled to see these guys topping my list (her favourite band to the moon and back...) but beyond being introduced to them through her, their subsequent place in my heart was fully earned by their well-read lyrics, piano/drum led melodies and energetic live performance. Library Voices are one of those bands you see live and think to yourself "How are they not super famous!?!"
Hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan, this seven piece multi- keyboard, multi-guitar, multi-awesome outfit is virtually unstoppable on-stage. If you've ever heard the expression "they left it all out on the stage" this is who it was invented to describe. I have been to a lot of concerts in my time, but it only took me about ten seconds into my first Library Voices show to realise it would be one of my top five concerts of all time.
The venue (Casa Del Popolo) is a small bar tucked secretly behind a restaurant, and its difficult to not feel like you're involved in some kind of back-door dealings as you snake through the tables and through a back door. The cider was cheap and tasty and the crowd was enthusiastic, if somewhat small, but you never would have known it once LV took to the stage. The next night I would go to my first stadium concert in years and be impressed with how Mumford and Sons made a huge crowd seem like an intimate gathering- but Library Voices did the exact opposite, making the small crowd feel like a packed house. And an amazing one at that. The sweat was flying, the band members teetering on the edge of the stage and often venturing out into the crowd. Seriously, but seriously, you could not have felt more a part of things if you were up on the stage.
Fantastic show. Really really. And not that it bears much weight on their music, but this band is also incapable of taking an un-awesome photograph. Whether its a picture of the band, or one taken by them, every image is beautifully framed, coloured, composed and anything else you can think of.
So check them out at libraryvoices.ca and tell all your friends. The best band you've never heard of. For Serious Yo.
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