Invalid characterset or character set not supported Wolf Parade @ The Trocadero, Philadelphia, PA (11/4/10)





Wolf Parade @ The Trocadero, Philadelphia, PA (11/4/10)
November 07, 2010



Language City
What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)
Palm Road
You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son
Fancy Claps
Ghost Pressure
Oh You, Old Thing
Fine Young Cannibals
Cave-o-Sapien
This Heart's on Fire
I'll Believe in Anything
Pobody's Nerfect
Semi-Precious Stone
===
Cloud Shadow on the Mountain
Shine a Light
Kissing the Beehive

You know, there was this one time when a guy I follow on Twitter asked his followers for favorite bands of theirs that were disappointing live. When confronted with this question, I realized that this has never happened with me; I've been pleased with every live show I've been to. The Wolf Parade show I went to on Thursday is a great example. There were some questionable setlist choices (opening with "Language City"?) and some notable omissions (no "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"?), but what they did play absolutely came alive, and one song in particular might just be my favorite concert-going experience ever.

Surprisingly, I'd never been to the Trocadero before, and had trouble finding it. I knew it was in Chinatown (which isn't very big), but I actually walked past it a few times because the place has such a small sign. I wound up being the first person in line, which has never happened to me before. I had to wait a while, but I landed a spot right in front of the stage.



As far as I'm concerned, Expo 86 is one of the best albums of the year, but my two favorite new songs, "Yulia" and "Little Golden Age," weren't played. On the other hand, pretty much everything they did play absolutely exploded in a live setting, including a couple of songs I originally wasn't fond of, like "Cave-o-Sapien." It took a little while for the audience to get warmed up, but by the second half of the set, we were all headbanging and jumping around and having a great time.

The highlights of the set were songs from Apologies to the Queen Mary, one of my all-time favorite albums. "Runner" into "Fancy Claps" was an exciting early moment, but the high point of the show was the one-two combo of "This Heart's on Fire" and "I'll Believe in Anything." The latter is probably my favorite live song to date, as that was when the audience absolutely erupted, screaming the mass-chant-along-ready lyrics in unison. It's such a fantastic song and seeing it performed live has only raised my respect for it.

The last song of the night was "Kissing the Beehive," an eleven-minute monster of a song that made an epic closer and is easily the best track from At Mount Zoomer (from which they played very few songs). It feels like every time I go to a show nowadays, I come back calling it one of the best concerts I've ever been to, and this was no exception. It demonstrates what happens when you combine an enthusiastic crowd, an intimate venue and a band that knows how to rock the hell out.

Unfortunately, only a couple of videos of the show have popped up, and none of them are great. Here's one of "Cloud Shadow," a great example of a song I never particularly liked on record (it's just so freakin' bizarre) that really improved live:



By the way, the opening act was a Japanese band called Ogre You Asshole. Check them out, because they were awesome. More pictures from the show are here.

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