8/20/2010 at the Metro
The last night of what seems to have been a bit of a bonding tour, Kevin Read from the Freelance Whales got up crowd interaction (lyrics and timing for a sing a long participation) with The Arkells, and played along with Tokyo Police Club, and then Greg Alsop of Tokyo Police Club came and played drums with Freelance Whales, you could feel the bond of the bands.
Freelance Whales hit the stage and I’m delighted with how many seem to know them. They seem to have gathered a following during the Lolla visit, just so you know they will actually be back late November/early December. They also recorded some songs with Marty Lennartz, who is the host of The Big Beat on WXRT 93.1 fm, Mondays at 10 p.m., this Monday 8/23 they will be on the program, if you don’t know them you should become familiar before they come back for their headlining tour. They are a group of multitalented, multi-instrumentalists, which keep the variety going on stage as they play a game of music instrument duck goose. They hit all the sweet notes (erratic, eccentric, irrelevant as they seem) but you don’t even realize all the effort that is required to make such a tranquil harmony of noises, cause really they make it look easy. They played most of ‘Weathervanes’, a highlight of the set included them being joined on stage by Greg Aslop , and adding even more to ‘generator ^2nd floor’. Really who am I kidding though, the way they are able to experiment even more with the songs as they wander, but wander together as a band, and keep the sound’s going that take you on a unique experience with them.
Tokyo Police Club enters the dark stage area, to an under current that resounds for the length of their stage time. They seem to ride this electricity for the performance, they even have a light show with them, and I think they have actually figured out mind control through keyboards, that’s just my guess though. They made people that had not moved for the entire show bob their heads, or people that were unfamiliar with the music feel familiar with it. They seem to have crowd interaction down to a science as they keep the crowd singing, clapping, and swaying the whole show and into the 2 song encore that ended this U.S. tour with a Weezer cover and ‘Your English is Good’.
Overall I would have to give this show an outstanding rating. When I arrived pre-doors at 7:45 the reader board said there was still tickets available, but watching the crowd fill in by band I would say that it was a sold out show by the time Tokyo Police Club was setting up for the performance. It was nice to experience such a harmonizing show.
