UP+DT REVIEW: Weird wonderful walkabout
By far the weirdest and most wonderful thing witnessed during a walkabout at the Up+Downtown indie rock festival on Friday night was Tanya Tagaq.
She makes Yoko Ono look like Britney Spears.
At the storied McDougall United Church, a lovely space with cavernous acoustics, the Polaris Prize-winning Inuk throat singer took several hundred people on a fantastic journey they will not soon forget. With violinist Jesse Zubot and drummer Jean Martin, she pulled off a completely improvised “conceptual” set – using her voice not for lyrics but as some kind of outworldly musical instrument that could do almost anything. It was intense (as she promised), experimental, unconventional music never heard before. It will never be heard again – being free-form improvisation and all. Tagaq summoned animals, demons, monsters, angels, at times seeming to speak in tongues with religious fervor, communicating in nothing but primal emotion. The musicians, master improvisers, enhanced and inspired each other until it felt like they played as one. Scary.
Words came earlier, in stark gentle contrast to the music, when Tagaq started the show by sitting on the stage and reading from her new book of short stories, Split Tooth. These were candid, funny, relatable, sometimes dark tales (and dreams) from her youth. She told the crowd in a soft voice how nervous she was.
She sure didn’t look nervous once the music started. Audience members sat there paralyzed, mouths agape. I snuck out after 30 minutes of the first song – it was showing no signs of ending any time soon.
There were other acts to see at this weird festival – weird bands, cult bands, famous artists not from around here, some stars of indie rock, some acts you don’t get to see every day in Edmonton.
Second prize for Friday’s weird and wonderful goes to Jonathan Richman, holding laid-back court at the Freemason’s Hall. A legend of indie rock long before they used the term “indie rock” (1970, in fact), he and his drummer partner were so cool they were chilly. The guy has what you might call an “eccentric” stage presence. He seems to be in a different universe than the rest of us, softly playing and singing his quirky, funny, genre-defying songs as if in a trance. In just about every song of the already quiet show he’d step away from the microphone and sing unamplified, or sometimes just recite weird poetry, or maybe do a little dance. The people loved every minute of it.
Richman turns out to be a decent Spanish guitar player. At one point in the show they did a funky instrumental breakdown that seemed to be made up on the spot. Others were more structured. The crowd sang along delightedly to songs like I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar (from 1992). Don’t remember that one on the hit parade. Indie rockers don’t need hits.
Problem was that Tanya’s early show had set the bar so high that it was all downhill from there – in terms of satisfying one’s appetite for odd musical experiences. There were some good conventional bands seen: The sensitive piano songstress Rachel Beck in the CKUA Performance Space (which has great sound but needs a better name). There was the roots rock of Edmonton’s own Post Script; the offbeat Metric-like Language Arts from Toronto (right); and Good Nature, another Edmonton band that sounds on the cusp of radio-friendliness and therefore in danger of being cast out of the “indie” club. Indie means “independent” doesn’t it?
There was one last surprise: the sold-out show from Destroyer at 9910. This turned out not to be the KISS cover band (could you imagine?), but the complete opposite of the name as a sensitive solo singer-songwriter named Dan Bejar (below). He’s a hero of Vancouver’s indie rock scene. On his own you could hear every quirky lyric and convoluted melody, all delivered in a giddy, weirdly vocally-affected manner that was mesmerizing. Like a Jonathan Richman in the making, people hung on his every word.
Putting on a multi-bar walkabout music festival in Edmonton in October must be a challenge, but if you haven’t been there lately, you may notice that downtown nightlife is a lot busier than it used to be. Lots of bars now – and UP+DT is adding a jolt of friendly energy to an already thriving party district.
The weird fun continues Saturday with acts like Brant Bjork, Antibalas, and Z-Trip; and Sunday with Jr. Gone Wild, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald and many more. The schedule is here.
