The Dears/The Grates @ Bowery Ballroom: Dears in Headlights

You can consider The Dears the other important band from Montreal, Canada. They came to the Bowery Ballroom tonight, not with tales of death and destruction of percussion instruments, but with expertly crafted rock songs and a dynamic live act.

Setlist:

• Sinthro
• Ticket to Immortality
• Bandwagoneers
• Whites Only Party
• Death or Life We Want You
• Lost in the Plot
• 2 ieme
• Die
• We Can Have It
• 22: The Death of All the Romance
• Fear Made the World Go 'Round
• You and I Are a Gang of Losers
• There Goes My Outfit
• Mountains
• Encore: Post Card from the Purgatory
• I Fell Deep

The thing with The Dears is that there isn't a particular rock sub-genre you can pin them to. The Smiths often come up as a major influence, but they are much more then that. True, some of their tunes come off as Morrissey-like, but other selection have a prog rock, indie dance, psychedelic and jam band quality.

Murray Lightburn is the front man of The Dears and the creative force. He doesn't have a pretentious bone in him. It might be the reason that The Dears have flown under the radar for a bit. They are not "rock stars" even though they play the part on stage. They have the look and the stoic nature on stage, they just don't come with any scenster-credibility. They come to play, nothing else

The new album, Gang of Losers, has some major label packing, so we'll see if they can make a bigger name for themselves.

Anyway, they most certainly know how to put up a straight-up, entertaining live show. Heavy beats, a variety of styles to get you moving and a complete lack of bullshit. Songs take on a life of their own, becoming tunes with an epic quality.

My buddies The Grates from Brisbon, Australia opened up the night with their brand of power pop. More on John, Alana and that other chick tomorrow. In the meantime, check out John's pornstashe. It's downright, John Holmes-ian.

Here, Patience tries to play matchmaker with crowd members.

Comments

[Orlando]

Hah! 1st post. Nice meeting you last night at the show Chris.

And a very good show it was. Just wish Murray from the Dears hadn't thrown out flowers towards the end. I mean he is already compared to Morrissey so much, and this will only add to it. Luckily, the Dears, brings more than imitation to the table. Really great show overall.

Cheers.

[Qbertplaya]

i thought that might be you up front but i said, gee, why would the music snobbery dude be here if there's a phoenix show going on tonight? :)

anyway, the dears rock my world. they and arcade fire are responsible for erasing my hatred of all things canadian.

and the grates were just darling, too.

[MusicSnobbery]

Well, because I'm seeing Phoenix in San Fran. Dears need love too