Who knew? I went and checked out Bedouin Soundclash last Saturday when they played at Lee’s Palace in Toronto. I was surprised to find that an alarming amount of college jocks would be in attendance. Not that I have anything against jocks… ok, maybe a little left-over hate from high school. I just didn’t expect to see dudes in kakis at a Bedouin Soundclash show.
The show, in my opinion, was quite disappointing. I’ve been pretty into BC for the past few months, listening to them on a regular basis. I find they’re good to have on when I’m working. Some good chillin’ music for sure. Their live show on the other hand, is a completely different experience. While their albums are totally mellow, their drummer doesn’t feel he needs to keep up the vibe and just beats the living piss out of his kit. Don’t get me wrong – I love a drummer that can rock out and play wicked hard. But there’s a time and a place for it… and playing for Bedouin Soundclash is neither. Totally ruined the vibe.
The worst part of the show, though – was the horrid delay/reverb effects used on the vocals and drums to make them sound all ‘dub’. Either the sound guy was new or was drunk… cause he didn’t hit a queue once. He’d crank up the delay on the bass drum in a break-down, but would leave it up a couple bars into the next part when they pick it back up. Which resulted in this unbearable repeating bass drum and made me want to tear my face off. Same with the vocals. He’d throw up the delay on the end of a line to get the last word to echo a few times – which is cool. But then he wouldn’t turn it off and singer dude would start the next line with each word being repeated like 8 times. Worst!
One of the highlights of the show were the covers they pulled out. They probably did a half dozen covers, if not more. They did some UB40, Beres Hammond, Billy Bragg, Toots And The Maytals and a little John Legend, too.
This show was my first show at Lee’s Palace… believe it or not. And I’m hitting it up again tomorrow night to see the legendary Toots And The Maytals! I couldn’t possibly be more stoked about that show!