HPX 2010 - Night #3 Recap!

Posted by TNaugler October 22, 2010

HPX 2010 - Night #3 Recap!

Tiffany @ Argyle Fine Art

By The Bootstraps

07:00 PM - Orphanage Clothing Fashion Show

This was something that none of us have seen happen at HPX... a live art, fashion and musical event By The Bootstraps!

And since I can't really write worth crap, I'm going to steal the info from the facebook event to give you an idea as to what went down...

"By The Bootstraps is continuing to explore the connections between art and music with two local artists coming together create an art show and tableaux style fashion presentation all wrapped up in an indoor forest created for the event.

The artwork portion of the evening will consist of custom instrument design and pieces of artwork built specifically for local musicians by artist Nick Brunt, actively investigating influence and inspiration through physical form.

Orphanage Clothing will be releasing its new collection in a tableaux style fashion show that will run throughout the evening. The new collection will be available to attendees for discounted pricing along with other items at the sample sale onsite.

Short film by Tarek Abouamin.

ALL THAT and more because Acres and Acres is going to be there playing the night away"

Video:

Isaac & Tiffany @ Gus' Pub

09:00 PM - Chanteuse

10:00 PM - d'Eon

11:00 PM - Silver Dapple

12:00 AM - Pink Noise, The

01:00 AM - Bad Vibrations

I wasn’t really in the mood to go out on Thursday night. First of all, it was raining buckets outside and on top of that I was friggin’ exhausted from three straight days of working nine to five and then attending concerts all night. I was grumpy and not ready to rock. But duty calls, so off I went.

When I got there Silver Dapple was doing their soundcheck it was noisy and full of feedback. I was fully expecting not to like this band at all but when they started to play my mood brightened a bit. Despite their head-ache inducing soundcheck, they were highly enjoyable. They played tight, well written songs full of dissonant guitar chords and strong vocal hooks. They had a 90s shoegazer style similar to Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. They had a few technical difficulties early in their set and actually stopped a song halfway through, which is kind of unprofessional and not at all fun to see. But when they were on they were great.

Although their set went a little smoother, The Pink Noise didn’t do it for me as much as€ Silver Dapple did. There were a lot of elements of Pink Noise that I loved (great guitar riffs, awesome steady drumming, haunting keybords) but there were plenty of elements I didn’t enjoy at all. The vocalist had an Iggy Pop type talk/singing thing going on. It was cool for a couple of songs, but it started to bore me pretty quick and made the songs sound too similar. There were no real vocal hooks at all, but the New-Wave style punk rock they played begged for it. At times the group intensified to the point of just being noise which also didn’t do it for me. That being said, they were playing to a very enthusiastic crowd who obviously loved every minute of it.

Bad Vibrations ended the night with a set of sludgy stoner metal crossed with punk rock.
These guys are local mainstays and have been covered by Noisography a few times before, so to avoid needless repetition I’ll keep it simple. It was another great set by a band that is as melodic as they are heavy and as interesting as they are accessible.

Pinky & Dan @ The Paragon

09:00 PM - Quivers

10:00 PM -Amos the Transparent

11:00 PM -DInosaur Bones

12:00 AM -Sloan

I arrived at The Paragon just as Halifax’s Quivers were taking the stage, and they kicked the night off well. Now, I’ve played in bands with Lyle Peterson, so it was no surprise to me how solid his guitar playing was, what did surprise me however was how incredible Quivers sounded through the PA at The Paragon. It was loud, it was rockin’, and front man Josh Salter used the entire size of the stage to wail and flail about, not missing a note with his guitar playing.

Quivers write great rock songs and they really caught the attention of the whole room. As more and more people filed in they kicked into a cover of See No Evil by Television, and they just fucking nailed it. This wasn’t a case of “yeah they’re pretty good for being local” this was a case of them being just plain awesome. I hope they end up playing more shows on big stages with big PA’s, it definitely worked to their benefit.

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Up next was Amos The Transparent, whom I didn’t really know much about and they came out guns-a-blazin as well. They were a large band, but their sound wasn’t cluttered, it was hard hitting pop rock with great melodies and three (sometimes four) part harmonies. They had great parts, but nothing really stuck out for me as being particularly unique, they were just a good solid rock band. As with Quivers they really sounded great through the Paragon PA, and by the time they finished the room was almost to capacity.

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Dinosaur Bones were one of my highlights of last years Pop Ex. Their mid tempo rock songs are laced with catchy vocal melodies and awesome bass lines. With a band like Dinosaur Bones, the mix needs to be perfect to avoid certain parts crowding others, and although the first two bands were mixed perfectly, it felt like the soundman just couldn’t get a handle on DB. The keyboards and vocals were barely audible at some points, and the bass would come in and out as well. I stood in three spots trying to find a sweet spot, and I just couldn’t. That didn’t stop them from putting on a great show, however. As far as songwriting goes, these guys are top notch. They played the songs off their 7-inch vinyl, as well as their old EP (a new one is in the works) and their new material is sounding pretty impressive, I’ll definitely be checking them out when they come back out east to release their EP.

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After Dinosaur Bones I made my way up front for what I knew would be another Pop Ex highlight, Sloan playing Twice Removed from start to finish. I watched their roadie sound check all their instruments and make sure everything was right. He brought water out. Then he brought towels out. Then he brought more water. And then no one did anything for 20 minutes. I hate it when headlining bands make people wait longer before they go on. Regardless of your popularity, you’re playing Pop Explosion and you’re supposed to be on at 12:00 according to the schedule. I was up front sweating my ass off in the heat of hundreds of bodies when finally at 12:25 or so they came out and kicked right into Penpals. After that I wasn’t mad at them anymore, they were everything I had hoped for.

The guys in Sloan are some of the best musicians to come from Halifax. Through the set they swapped instruments, playing everything like it was the most natural thing in the world. As expected, they played all of Twice Removed. As expected, it was great. I thought the crowd up front would be losing their minds, but everyone was pretty chill, it was sort of weird. I think most of the people up front were just there to see Sloan, and weren’t particularly excited for all the old material, I noticed that people that were standing back behind the bar were singing along more than the people up front. All in all, it was a great night, and we’ll probably never have to opportunity to see Sloan play some of those songs again. Definitely a highlight.