Live: Plants & Animals: Among the nature of French Canadians

As promised, here is a short review of Thursday's Plants and Animals concert at the Horseshoe Tavern.

Well, i had a pleasant surprise of finding out the Ruby Coast was opening. i was excited because i've been hearing so much about them lately and missed a couple shows. They were fun, young, and poppy. i'll definitely look into getting their album soon. They may have had too many hand claps and the girl in front of me didn't stop hopping for the entire set (a friend said "too much red bull?") and some other girl who ran into me was all "oh my gahd, this is like an aerobics class!!!", therefore that is one high-energy set. It was fun, a strange pairing with P&A, but i'm glad i saw them. i later saw them heading across the street to McDonalds. Late-night concert jonesing, boys? Nothing gets you hopped up like a good cheezbugah.

But what i've been waiting for for months, Plants and Animals, finally came. i have been spinning this record with adoration for a while now (ahem, last post) and the triplet (but not really) from Montreal did not disappoint. Their performance didn't really sound like Parc Avenue, but that didn't matter. Each member brought amazing old-school energy, but the first thing i noticed was their drummer, Matthew Woodley, and the way he moved while playing. i have never seen anything like it! Who knew someone sitting behind a drum set could move like that. And what's better, with a pineapple shaker while he only drummed with one hand. It's like he's destined to salsa dance. ANYWAYS, they played all of the songs that i mentioned in the last post to my delight. the best part of the evening was at the end during "Faerie Dance" when Warren Spicer and Nicolas Basque were trying to coordinate the synthesizer's light dings with Warren's vocals and it just didn't work. So funny and innocently charming. It may not have been the beautiful wisps of the album, but it was raw, honest, and fun.

Go here to watch a video done by Jen White for ChartAttack during March's CMW with the band, and you'll get a glimpse of Matthew's drum dance, Nicolas's cute French-Canadian accent and hilarious quip about tasting a raccoon, and Warren's uncomfortable-looking position in the van.

Here's a video of "Mercy" and a little bit of a jam session in the middle.

Coming up: Live reviews of The Swell Season & Sigur Ros.