Dandy Warhols, June 16, 2012 in Vancouver BC at the Commodore Ballroom

Cheap Trick at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver B.C.- September 1, 2011

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros -May 31, 2010 at the Commodore Ballroom

One of my favourite bands. Alex Ebert can command a crowd wearing nothing but what looks like dirty pajamas. So much love in the crowd and on the stage. Magical
.
Alex Ebert

Alex Ebert

Alex Ebert

Jade Castrinos

Manic Street Preachers- September 22, 2009 in Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom

James Dean Bradfield

I think I've finally figured out why I like Twitter. It's like a search engine for everything you actually want to find. I like taking photos, but I don't particularly like writing reviews of the shows I go to. Mostly, you could say that at best, I write commentary. With that in mind, I am going to direct you readers to a review I found on Twitter. It's from an amazing website called Guttersnipe, and I urge you to check it out.

The review is HERE and I pretty much have nothing to add to it, except for a bit of personal commentary.

I saw the Manic Street Preachers when they came to Vancouver ten years ago. I don't remember that much about it except that every interview mentioned the disappearance of Richie Edwards. It's only now with the release of Journal For Plague Lovers, which features lyrics left behind by Edwards, that I can appreciate his contribution to the band.

My final commentary is that this show felt like the Goldilocks show. It had been a busy week with the Hold Steady, Arctic Monkeys, and Manic Street Preachers. If you read my thoughts on the other shows, then you'll understand why I felt this show was just right. Great music, amazing energy and genuine engagement with the crowd.
Nicky WIre

Gogol Bordello - October 11, 2008 at the Commodore

Eugene Hütz

I first heard Gogol Bordello brand of "Gypsy Punk" at Bumbershoot 2007. We were wandering around the market place as the stalls were closing, and individually, we each were drawn to the music from the neighboring stage.

Within minutes we were immersed in the music, a combination of Soviet folk music with polka/punk beats which had has jumping around like crazy people.

We were pretty excited to see a real show and with two sold out shows, apparently everyone else in Vancouver was excited too.

There was no opening act, just a stage full of musicians playing everything from accordions to fiddles, and all led by bear hat wearing, fire drum playing Eugene Hutz.

Elizabeth Chi-Wei Sun & Pamela Jintana Racine

The Music was great, just as fun as we remembered. The stage full of musicians included two very hot multi-ethinic chicks who banged cymbals and marching drums and prowled the stage like wild animals.

Sergey Ryabtsev on fiddle

Much jumping ensued, lots of screaming, and singing. At one point a guy jumped on stage and Eugene wouldn't let security take him away. Instead he let him sing the last verse of "Start Wearing Purple" before watching him leap into the audience.
Thomas 'Tommy T' Gobena

Was it a little bit over the top? Maybe, but who cares! It was fun! They were having fun! We all had fun and you will to. Go check them out when you get a chance.
Yuri Lemeshev

Gomez - February 16, 2007 at the Commodore in Vancouver

My first and only other time seeing Gomez was in 1999 on their first swing through Vancouver at the Starfish Room. Wow, 1999. Before I had high speed internet and used to buy Q magazine and CMJ for the CD's so I could find new music. It was through one of those CMJ CD's that I first heard Gomez.
Ben Ottewell

I loved "Bring It On", and was really looking forward to the Starfish Room show but ended up being really disappointed because I could barely recogognize a song. They were a jam band, ala Grateful Dead or at least it seemed like it to me at the time. Although that really works for some people, I'm just not that type of girl so I thought that would be it for me and Gomez. Fast forward to the present, and I'm on myspace and happen upon "See The World" on someones player. "How We Operate" became my non stop favourite.
Tom Gray

Despite my lifelong love of music there are many, many reasons why I never tried to become a music critic or writer professionally. An example of one of those reasons is as follows. I thought that there were only two singers in Gomez. I thought the one I liked most just did my favourite and least favourite songs. There are actually three and they are pretty distinct.
Ian Ball

I may not have come to this show had it not been double billed with Ben Kweller, or if Deb had not been so excited about seeing Gomez. It turned out that I'd parked myself in front of my favourite singer, Ian Ball, and he played my favourite song, Hamoa Beach, second song in. He had a fender guitar with stickers of all sorts of life affirming thoughts and phrases. I'm assuming they are not meant ironically due to the lyrical content of his songs. Click here for my flickr photo to see what all the stickers say.


I was especially happy to see that they weren't a jam band. Anymore? Never really were? I don't know. I do know that about halfway through the set they started to loosen up and seem enjoy themselves. Ian seemed especially nervous and tense at first. This could be due to a fake set list that had been distrubuted as a joke.

This could also have been due to the monitors being located up high as opposed to on the stage where they usually are. I witnessed a little pantomine between Ian and Ben that seemed to indicate a wish to rip them off the ceiling and put them on the floor.

Highlights of the two hour show include an almost a capella version of "How We Operate" which was hauntingly gorgeous and a Happy Birthday song sung by the crowd to a crew member that was giddily silly.

Ben Kweller - February 16, 2007 at the Commodore in Vancouver

This was a double bill with Gomez so I'll break it up into two parts.
First up was Ben Kweller.

I've actually seen both Gomez and Ben Kweller before. Ben Kweller was about three years ago at Richards on Richards in support of "On My Way".

That was a great show. I love that album, and there was an element of danger due to the precarious balancing of the keyboard on the speaker. It felt like at any second that Kweller played the keyboard that he could tumble 4 feet to the floor.

This show was more stripped down with Kweller touring with just a bassist and drummer. Kweller arrived on stage with his eyes almost completely covered by the brim of his cap. The stage was set with a lovely Ben Kweller banner.

Highlights included a fun cover of an old timer Texas tune, the name of which I can't remember, but seemed to be on the set list as Chugg. (?) and an impromptu performance of the Nintendo Supermario game song.

Okay, real highlights were "Penny On The Train Track" and "I Gotta Move" from the new Ben Kweller self titled album and of course "Wasted And Ready". I was really sad he didn't play my favourite song from the new album, "This Is War".


One of the other things I love is when artists come out after the show to say hello and meet the fans. Happily, Kweller was amazingly nice while I rattled on and on as I am want to do.

Pete Yorn - February 8, 2007. The Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver

The last time I saw Pete Yorn was 4 years ago when he was touring in support of "Day I Forgot". According to him, the last time he was actually through Vancouver was as the opening act for the Foo Fighters, which is a double bill I just don't get.

Yorn did tell an interesting anecdote about that trip. As he was leaving a sushi restaurant he was overcome by a crowd of people swarming the streets in celebration. He asked what was going on, and it turned out that the Canucks had won a semi final game. "You've got to admire a city that celebrates the first game, of the first series.

The opening acts were Charlotte Martin, who had the most beautiful stage setup consisting of twisted christmas lights arranged to look like candelabras, and Aqualung.

Aqualung is Matt Hales, a Winston lookalike/soundalike from the UK who also sounds a lot like Travis. He sounds so much like Travis in fact that I had to google him when I got home to see if it was actually the Travis lead singer gone solo. Having these kinds of thoughtful distractions coupled with the fact that he was hidden on the side of the stage playing a grand piano out of my eyeline meant that I pretty much thought his set was pretty much forgettable. I say pretty much because he does have one remarkable song called "Better Then Sunshine" which I know I've heard but can't remember where.

Pete Yorn took the stage to great fanfare. The crowd was surprizingly mixed since the last time I'd seen him the crowd was probably 80% girls. This time was pretty even although his status as a sex symbol has not diminished judging by the amount of lingerie that was tossed his way.

His backing band is actually a band I well and truly love called Minibar. In Yorn's previous west coast tour, Minibar was the opening act as well as backing band, and I would have loved to see that, alas they only played as close as Seattle. Most memorable moments for Minibar would have to be the incredibly energetic drummer, Malcolm Cross, pictured above, and the multitalented bassist Sid Jordan who managed to 1) play bass 2) smoke a joint, all while 3) singing back up vocals! I wish I had gotten a photo of that.

Since I'm not a writer, and have a crappy memory, I'll just mention some thoughts and highlights about the actual show.

He had this gorgeous old decorated acoustic guitar that had it's strap held on with duct tape. I love to see things like that.

He told of how he'd awoken to hear that Anna Nicole Smith had been hospitalized and after he had finished showering heard that she'd died. He dedicated "Bandstand In The Sky" to her. A sample lyric is ...

You can take my life but I'll never die.
You can tell that's the way I'll survive.
Heading for the bandstand in the sky.

He also told about the soft spot he had in his heart for "Life On A Chain" because it was the song that got him his record contract. "Sing along if you know it" and sing along the crowd did. Sang along to pretty much everything in fact.

Particularly lovely was an almost acoustic version of "Come Back Home" played at 2/3 speed giving it a nice intimacy and a totally acoustic cover of the Grateful Dead song "Friend of the Devil".

The other cover he played was "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths. Pete had just seen Morrissey in L.A. and I guess he was a big influence on him.

I'm sure I forgot a lot but I can say it was a great show. Love him, not JUST because he's cute.

The Yoko Casionos with Sloan- October 24, 2006 at the Commodore Ballroom

I've always been a big fan of The Yoko Casionos since the first time I saw them. It was totally exciting to see them play a big venue with their first major label release, "These Are The New Old Times".
Misty Reid of the Yoko Casionos

They were opening for Sloan who I've seen several times, so it was really all about the Yokos.
Patrick Pentland of Sloan

At the heart of The Yoko Casionos are the brother and sister team of Chad and Misty Reid, who just also happen to be twins.
Chad Reid of the Yoko Casionos

I've seen the Yokos many many times so it was no surpize to me to see the hometown crowd cheering them on wildly. I was singing along to everything like they were already the big stars I hope they become.
Juice of the Yoko Casionos

Sloan was promoting a new 30 SONG CD called "Never Hear The End Of It". Some of songs are only about a minute long, and many of them aren't true gems, so it's quite the risky move for their first studio album in almost 3 years. They did play my favourite new song called "Someone I Can Be True With".
Chris Murphy Of Sloan

The bad thing is when you have a new 30 song CD and you play even a 10 of the new songs, you end up missing out on a lot of material that your fans have come to love.

The best part was the encore when Yoko's Juice and Misty returned to the stage for Sloan's encore.
Misty And Jay Ferguson of Sloan