The Walkmen: Live at Lee's Palace, Toronto

Living in a city like Toronto affords any music loving individual with ample opportunity to see great bands and to do so regularly.  On the one hand, this ensures that virtually every band plays here; on the other, tickets sell out.  For music obsessives, the best tactic is to buy early, and in bulk.  Often I make a list of bands I’d like to see in the next month or two and go buy all the tickets in one fell swoop.  There is one major drawback to this plan, in that I often forget bands are playing until the night of the show.  Tonight is no exception although, luckily I remember with enough time to actually make it to the show.  This is exceptionally lucky, in fact, as tonight The Walkmen are playing.  

A little about Lee’s Palace, first.  One of my favourite venues in Toronto, Lee’s is a great place to see shows for a variety of reasons.  First of all, it’s the right size.  By right size, I mean that it probably fits around 600 people.  This means that, because of the rectangular shape of the room, coupled with the multiple levels, you can see the band even at sold out shows like The Walkmen.  Add to this the generally above average sound (an incredibly underrated essential) and that, with a few exceptions, ticket prices never rise above $17, and you get a pretty appreciative audience most times round (another underappreciated part of a good live show).  Lee’s is archetypal of a solid, simple, great live venue.  It’s not fancy, but it doesn’t need to be.  It does one job and it does it well. 

Having already forgotten that I am going to see The Walkmen tonight, when I remember, I still miss out on the somewhat important point that Cass McCombs is supporting.  That is, until five minutes before I leave for the show and I suddenly feel incredibly privileged to be seeing one band I’ve loved for ages, and one artist I’ve recently discovered. 

When I arrive, McCombs is on his knees, wearing a full denim outfit, including the denim jacket I identify as the one worn in his video for You Changed My Life.  McCombs’ 80s aesthetic is mostly followed by his band, though especially by the second guitarist, who is sporting an oversized t-shirt, tightish light coloured blue jeans, and the creepy (yet possibly hip) combination of a weird half-moustache and middle parting.  It’s nice to see a band have an aesthetic; at the very least it makes them look like a cohesive unit.  They start by going through Lion Killer Got Married, the sibling song from Catacombs to Lion Killer from the previous Dropping the Writ.  It’s a faithful and powerful rendition, although undermined slightly by the crowd’s apparent lack of interest.  For all my preamble about Lee’s, and the mostly appreciative audience found therein, McCombs has to battle through people loudly talking during his set.  It he’s aware of this, he doesn’t show it though, as he seems cheerful, almost playful, throughout a set mostly composed of songs taken from his previous two records.  Set highlights are, of course for a new fan like myself, the recent, and aforementioned, You Saved My Life, and excellent slow-burning closer Dreams Come True Girl.  Most surprising, in fact, about McCombs is his height, he looks like he might be slightly smaller than me which, being a pretty short dude, is something I rarely find. 

Where to start with The Walkmen?  The best phrase I have so far come up with to describe their music is, “the sound of crushing disappointment”.  Over the course of four albums they have used a relatively simple line-up, consisting mainly of bass, organ, guitar, drums and vocals to devastating effect.  This is partly because the production on their songs is grainy and atmospheric in just the right ways, often sounding like the saddest, angriest Christmas Eve you’ve never had.  It’s also because their singer, Hamilton Leithauser, has one of the loudest, roughest, yet strangely smooth voices ever committed to tape.  Imagine a lounge singer dieting entirely on cigarettes and you’re probably close.  Of course, it’s not just the voice, it’s also the lyrics which are appropriately bitter, sad, angry, and let down, often all at the same time.  Their first album was called Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Has Gone, just to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with here. 

It’s Leithauser’s voice that has made me slightly anxious about this gig.  On record it’s incredible, but past experiences have taught me that, sometimes, great record voices don’t make great live voices and I have a feeling that a band like The Walkmen, so dependent upon their vocals, will stand or fall on this point.  A minute into the set opener Donde esta la Playa and this fear is forgotten and replaced with a new admiration for a band I rate so highly on record.  While I understand that it is quite a hackneyed writing technique, particularly in music journalism, to “flip” expectations as I’ve just done, I could think of no better way of capturing how great it is to hear Leithauser sing live. 

It’s normal for bands to space out their “hits” across sets, but tonight The Walkmen decide to place The Rat almost immediately after In the New Year.  The former brought them fame and, assumedly, some amount of fortune, whereas the latter, coming from last year’s really quite excellent You & Me, hooked listeners and fans back in after A Hundred Miles Off, the slightly disappointing follow-up album to Bows & Arrows.  If The Walkmen seem to be the perpetual underdogs on record, they are playing with great confidence tonight.

In hindsight, ridding themselves of their two most famous tracks early on was a wise move.  The rest of the set balances out new tracks, mostly featuring an unexpected but entirely welcome horn section, with cuts from You & Me.  Louisiana is the only track to be taken from A Hundred Miles Off that I can hear and is good although sits slightly awkwardly in a set that sticks mostly to newer material closer in tone to the first two records, although this is a small complaint about what is, all things considered, a fantastic show.  Particular highlights include Red Moon, which is as powerful as it is on record, and I Lost You, one of the sadder and more dramatic sounding pieces The Walkmen have recorded so far. 

It’s an absolute joy to see a band you love on record play so well live and The Walkmen succeed immeasurably for me on this point.  They are tight, confident, and manage to somehow fill their live performances with as much deficient and distended energy as they do on their albums.  If You & Me renewed your faith in this band, then their live show will make you wonder why you ever doubted them in the first place.  Frankly, I love this band and am glad that the downtrodden, disappointed, let down, or otherwise have such a fantastic soundtrack.