Tangled Green Thoughts

The Sea Snakes [journal]

Last night I went to Rivoli's near Queen and Spadina to hear Shoe's band play. My sister and her boyfriend came with me because I got shafted by that philosophy girl. The night started off with an opening band that was all right. I actually liked the female back up singer more than I liked the lead. He broke his D-string so he went backstage to fix it while she sang a song about a gun, then he came back and sang about trailer trash and a stolen car. The songs invovled agonizing moaning, sometimes quietly, sometimes very loud. It really was quite depressing. Although the last song really picked up and had a lot of energy. My favourite part of their act was a talking monologue the female keyboardist had during an early song. It was pretty funny, talking about how she's in the best band in the world, but she said it very matter-of-fact and non-chalantly---"Yah, I'm in the best band in the world." You could tell this girl had a lot of wit in her. Then he joined in and his singing overlapped with her talking and the blend was very neat.

Shoe's band came next and the lead singer pictured in the first photograph came on with this giant winter parka. I swear I thought he was going to sing in it, but just before the performance he took it off. His voice was a lot smoother and softer than the first. I couldn't say if it was better or worse only that it was different and appropriate for their music. Honestly, not because he's my friend or anything, but Shoe's musical personality stood out. Most of the time the keyboardist is just the background but you could totally hear elements of his electronic persona surface in the songs. Anyways, at the risk of destroying my ear drums I went right up to the front speakers to take like a million pictures of Shoe and he even smiled because he knew I was taking so many. Half the pictures I took without flash because I wanted them to look Indie (whatever the hell that means) like the first picture, but they ended up like shit. After their third break in playing I had to take off without saying good-bye because Minho and Karen seemed pretty tired.