Grimes - Oblivion

So last night was my second show in 4 nights (but last one for a while) featuring Vancouver born and raised Grimes playing a highly anticipated sold out homecoming show at the Commodore Ballroom. Apparently she has had to postpone some future Canadian dates due to hearing troubles but went against doctor recommendations to play to her home crowd. And wow, whatever ear issues she's having certainly were not evident last night as she tore through her set with crazy energy, rocking within her keyboards/DJ setup. She was flanked by female synth duo Myths who were each sporting greenish, see-through ponchos. Grimes herself was wearing her trademark large headphones and a Marilyn Manson shirt (pretty badass!). She wailed and shrieked and moved at a frantic pace the entire set. Very cool indeed for someone not even able to perform for the next week or so.

Grimes is absolutely amazing to watch perform because of all that she does up there. She is constantly recording herself singing a chorus or even a short yelp and then pressing the play/repeat button at the perfect time to bring it into the song while she is then onto something new. It really is something to see someone whose music could easily just be played off an iMac, like many DJs nowadays, play everything live; she creates her own beats and remixes them as she goes along. She and myths moved along at a frantic pace for the entire set and they even had some help make the show more crazy from a long-haired, bearded roadie. This guy came out three-quarters through the set with a box of balloons to throw into the crowd but completely failed to release them and they all fell right down except for one or two that he managed to bump/kick/punch into the front of the crowd LMFAO! But then near the end he came back with even more and succeeded, creating a colourful balloon dance party. Finally at the end he brought out a huge stuffed animal anime looking thing and danced with it. Just a hilarious scene!

"Oblivion" is probably Grimes' most well known song and video. According to my friend that I went to the show with it is the perfect song for a Zombie apocalypse; like what they would be Zombie-dancing to while coming for us! It does have that creepy backbeat and haunting singing and "la la la la la's". Then the apocalypse hits another gear when that cool buzzing comes in at about the 2:30 mark; also my favourite part. This song was a definite highlight of the show as she nailed that buzzing/humming/whatever you want to call it part. Other highlights included my personal fave "Vanessa", an incredibly hyper-energetic "Circumambient", the powerful, synth-driven "Be A Body", and set closer "Genesis" in which she absolutely killed the vocals. At only 24 years of age, Grimes has many great songs, albums, and shows ahead of her and I can't wait for all of it!

Some thoughts...

- Had a bit of a rough start to the night last night. I always take road pops for the Skytrain and usually it involves putting red ciders in the red Vitamin Water or Gatorade bottles. Last night I was in a rush and we had just done a can man trip so all I could find was one Gatorade bottle then had to use a green Canada Dry bottle for the other. Now I'm colour blind and thought that you could hardly tell there was something red in there. Boy was I wrong! Sure enough there were pigs waiting to check our tickets at the top of the stairs. I had the Gatorade (melon-flavoured btw) and my buddy had the Canada Dry. We both showed our tix and got on when one of the cops looked back and saw the red liquid in the green bottle. Fuck. So we got off the train and I left my bottle under the seat (phew!). Now I would've just been like yeah, it's booze, I'm Keelan, gimme my ticket etc. etc. like a typical wuss. My buddy, to his credit, was not willing to go down without a fight. He denied the booze and then wouldn't give them his identity, prompting the pigs to actually forcefully handcuff him and search him until they found his ID and it was game over. Good try bro! But now we have a $230 ticket to split (I begrudgingly agreed to this... it was my booze and fail ass colour-blindness bottle choice...though maybe we could've got off with a warning... so I dunno, I ain't Captain Hindsight lol but a split seems fair)!

- I just can't believe we live in a society where the police officers go to ridiculous lengths to stop people from drinking concealed alcoholic beverages on public transport (we weren't even driving or planning to drive!). Trust me, there are a shitload of worse things going on out there that could use the attention of these three dickheads. I guess I have Canuck fans to blame for that one...

- I basically had a road beer travelling all across Europe and nobody gave a shit... and they don't seem to have as much problems with alcohol or drinking and driving... go figure

- After such a great opening round the ALCS and NLCS have been stinkers. Here's hoping SF can at least make it interesting.

- Listen to Grimes!