In November of 2004, All Tomorrow’s Parties returned to Long Beach. I was living in Ashland at the time finishing up the Ice Cream season and planning a trip down to So Cal to put up some xmas lights to keep Bessy on the road. I contacted Goldenvoice and worked out a deal to sling some cream at my favorite festival. This would be the first time I had done an event this size. The first band to play the main stage was Wolf Parade. I had never heard of them at this point but was quite impressed. Soon after their set, Hadji and Arlen rolled by and took advantage of the free ice cream that i was offering to all the artist and staff. Throughout the day I ended up swapping quite a few coconut bars for the first two Wolf Parade EP’s.
Ever since then I’ve been a huge fan. Why it took them over a year to make it back to the entertainment capitol of the world I’m not sure. But I guess there’s no need to when you can sell out the El Rey in your first proper visit. Before we get to that though, lets start with their sold out show the night before at The Casbah in San Diego.
The Casbah is possibly the best venue in Southern California. It’s not too big, the sound is good, the folks running the joint are quite friendly, they let us take photos, and they have a great beer selection ($2 PBR cans and Anchor Steam on tap among many others). I knew ahead of time that it would be well worth the drive. Thankfully Dave was able to make it at the last minute to shoot pics. Chad Van Gaalen welcomed the crowd then informed everyone that Wolf Parade was nowhere to be found. They left Chicago at 5:30 that morning and got stuck in Vegas. Chad took the liberty of an elongated set and cracked jokes about over-sized Brazilian Beavers and the good life back in frozen Calgary. As he wrapped up his set it seemed that WP had arrived. False alarm. after about 20-30 minutes, one of the bouncers jumped on stage and said they were on the way. Sometime after midnight, they finally arrived. You could tell it had been an extremely tough day for them and they instantly thanked everyone for sticking around and apologized for their tardiness. But the only real way for them to make amends was to rock the house.
They flew through a good chunk of the tracks off Apologies to the Queen Mary with the highlight being “Shine a Light” which got the mini mosh pit going around me with three trashed locals. Hey, if that’s what it takes to dance…. It’s all kinda blurry because I’ve listened to them so much and this was the first time i got to see them where I could really let loose. That show was 4 days ago and I mentioned today to Rob as I was taking down Xmas lights that my neck was still sore. After the show I met up with the guys and dished out some cream to everyone hangin out front. Didn’t make it back to Long Beach til after 4 and with work all day and another show at the El Rey, I knew it was going to be tough to power through.
I picked up Gregg and his friend and found a nice spot for Bessy a couple blocks from the theater. That way I could roll up in front of the El Rey and give away ice cream once the show was over. We headed on in and I wandered around the sold out crowd cuz I was curious who all the fans were. It was cool because this wasn’t an industry show and most of the people in attendance seemed like they we’re red to get down. Chad Van Gaalen was having a rough time due to a phone call he received from his girlfriend in Calgary. Apparently someone had change her outgoing message on her answering machine and she couldn’t figure out if someone broke into her house to do so. yeah, freaky. His version of Springsteen’s “Dancin’ in the Dark” still rocked as well as “Clinically Dead” which is probably his first single on his new Sub Pop album, Infiniheart.
Wolf Parade took the stage and as soon as the ripped into “My Father’s Son” it was clear there was no going back. The sound was perfect and even with my stiff neck I still couldn’t stand still. With keyboard, sound manipulations, and two singers sharing lead duty, the songs varied just enough to keep things fresh while keeping the emotion high. “Shine a Light” was again great and I hope “This Hearts on Fire” had more people screaming the chorus besides me. It’s hard to be objective once you’ve become so dedicated but this was a show that was indisputable. After the set, but before the encore, i ran out and fired up Bessy and pulled up front. One thing i’ve learned is that Valet guys love free ice cream. After taking care of them they were nice enough to move a couple cars to give me prime placement. We hung out for a bit then Arlen came out with an Ice Cream Man shirt on to pick up some cream for the band. I told him the show was great but both of us agreed that it was hard to top the all-out ferocity of The Casbah show the night before. I’m just hoping that i won’t have to another year to see them again. I have a strange feeling they might be rockin’ Coachella though.
Listen to Wolf Parade live on www.justconcerts.com
