The last time The Kills headlined in Vancouver was in 2008 at Richards, so their newfound fame brought a lot of curious new fans to their sold-out show at The Commodore last night. I think people were expecting a regular rock gig, so they were only mildly excited by the jarring noise of openers The Entrance Band and Cold Cave.
The Entrance Band are a three-piece psychedelic rock band with a lot of credibility in the alternative scene, having toured with many oddball-but-now-famous artists like Devendra Banhart, Cat Power even Sonic Youth. I only caught their last few songs since the show started early, for some reason, but they were fantastic.
The Entrance Band - Lookout!
Cold Cave really blew me away, though. Literally. LOUDEST KICK DRUM EVER (as I said on Twitter last night). One part synthpop, one part new wave, and three parts crashing, scratching, grinding, piercing NOISE. These guys were off their shit, and for the right crowd (myself included), they would have had the dance floor bouncing, but honestly, they were so loud my teeth hurt, which is probably why no one was dancing.
Cold Cave - The Great Pan Is Dead
The Kills, well, they killed it. I wonder how many times that's been said. Alison Mosshart dominated the stage. She is one hell of a rockstar. If you don't already know, the band is basically Alison and her guitarist, Jamie Hince. No bass player, no drummer, just the two of them and a full setlist of smashing drum tracks that sound like they came from a Casio keyboard that was just put through a meat grinder. Alison strikes me as someone who would be flattered to be compared to Siouxsie Sioux, and that's exactly what was going through my mind during the show. Their set leaned a bit too heavily on the new album though. Only 2 or 3 of the 8 songs they played from the new album got the crowd excited, and I'm sure a lot of their fans, like me, were disappointed that they left out “Cheap and Cheerful” and “Last Day of Magic”, two of the biggest fan favourites. Despite the missing songs, Alison has a reputation for her energy on stage and together with Jamie (who really deserves more spotlight, what with his magic fingers and all), they rocked the Commodore.
The Kills - Cheap & Cheerful (listen and tell me how they could skip this one!)
The Kills - Satellite (off the new album, Blood Pressures)
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