"Who's kids are these?" I wondered at one point during last night's show at the Buckhead Theater. I could have been asking about the young audience at the all-ages show, but in fact I was wondering about the opener, Alberta's Born Gold.
I did not care for their set. The sound was all muddled together with the bass way too loud, the synthesized rhythm sounded like a pair of sneakers in a clothes dryer, and the band seemed more interested in choreographed dance moves than playing music. Worse, they played most of their set on a dark stage except for the lights from their keyboards, with occasional bursts of light (I caught one for the picture below), usually to capture their dance moves. They weren't hurt-your-ears bad or I'll-never-unhear-this bad, just these-guys-need-to-practice-playing-their-instruments-more bad. It was hard for me to understand how a band of that caliber could have earned the a spot on a national tour with Braids and Purity Ring, and I figured that they must have been somebody's kids - thus, "Who's kids are these?"
I learned the answer today - Born Gold is the band that used to go by the name Gobble Gobble and used to contain Corin Roddick, now of Purity Ring. They're the guys he left behind, so in a sense, they got the gig because they're Purity Rings's kids. Anyway, their set was a mercifully short 30 minutes, so enough about them - I don't like being negative and subscribe to the "if you don't have anything nice to say" philosophy of blogging, but this was just too much to not comment on.
Next up were Montreal's Braids, who were absolutely fantastic. We saw Braids once before when they opened for Wye Oak, and we were totally blown away then. Oddly, that performance brought Purity Ring to mind, and now, almost exactly a year later, here that are again, now opening for Purity Ring themselves.
Still, we weren't prepared for how great Braids were. Front-woman Raphaelle Standell-Preston's vocals soared at times, startled at others, and had my complete attention throughout. They have a new album, Deep In The Iris. out, but even the outstanding cuts from the record don't match the immediacy and range of Raphaelle's live vocals. By all means, if you have a chance to catch this band, do.
I don't know if the show had sold out or not, but the Buckhead Theater was packed. I got there a few minutes after the doors had opened, but there were already at least ten rows of people at the front of the stage. I fell back a little and watched the show from the front row of the elevated portion of the floor, still close enough to see well, but also high enough to see over the heads of the crowd. Unfortunately, the young audience around me were not talking to one another throughout the set, they were shouting at one another throughout the set. Totally oblivious to the great music on the stage, they were both preventing others from hearing it and also interfering with the atmosphere the band was attempting to create. "Who's kids are these?"
They finally did shut up for Purity Ring, or Purity Ring managed to drown them out, but after all, Purity Ring was the band they had come to see, not some band called "Braids."
We've seen Purity Ring twice before, first during MFNW (RIP) 2012 and then again at Variety Playhouse. Since those performances, Purity Ring's stagecraft has gotten even more visually compelling, even if their songs have not changed much. Their latest album, Another Eternity, has a glossier, more commercial sound than their debut, but live the songs sound more evenly matched.
Singer Megan James has a limited range, and after a while, she sounds like she's squeaking her way through every one of the songs, while instrumentalist Corin Roddick, formerly of Gobble Gobble, keeps the booming, bass-heavy beats going behind the vocals. It's a formula that works, and the audience reacted favorably throughout the set, arm-pumping and phone-waving the whole time.
Megan announced near the end of Purity Ring's set that for some reason there would be no encore, and true to her words, as soon as the last song was over right at 11:00 pm, the lights came on and the house music started. A few people called for "One more!," but no one ever came back on stage.
I don't know if I need to go to another Purity Ring show again unless they start to come up with something new, but the evening was still totally worth it for Braids' fine performance, even if it did mean enduring Born Gold's set.
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