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Café Du Nord May 8, 2004 Review by Jake Thomas Sometimes living in a place like San Francisco, with its numerous nighttime activities, can actually be frustrating when multiple bands you want to see are playing at different clubs all around town. On this evening, we had Deerhoof and Film School at 12 Galaxies, the A-Frames at the Hemlock, Extreme Elvis and Best Friends at the Elbo Room, and god knows what else. But I chose to see a bunch of Canadians known as the Constantines, and I think it was the best choice of them all, and likely one of the best shows I’ll see all year. Pretty much across the board this band gets compared to Fugazi with vocals by Bruce Springsteen, and it’s really to dispute these assertions especially after seeing the band live. Like Fugazi, the entire backbone of the group relies very heavily on the drums and bass as a stabilizing factor – the bassist of the Constantines couldn’t sound anymore like Joe Lally if he tried, and I consider that to be the utmost compliment to any bassist. And despite what you might think after hearing the album, the “Boss” vocals seem completely natural to the music, nor forced at all like some have mentioned out there in the ether of the interweb and beyond. The group played pretty much all of their newer record “Shine a Light” – most importantly, they played “Young Lions”, easily one of the best songs to be released all last year (if I had to rank, I’d probably but it at third after the obvious choice of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” and the Ex-Models “3 Weeks”). Additionally, they played a few new numbers and a handful off of their Canadian-only debut release (which I picked up at the show and is fabulous). To top it all off, they all seemed like genuinely nice lads. I know that shouldn’t matter when you’re talking about music, but it’s something that always influenced how much I like an act. This band is easily one of my favorite new bands out there today, and their live show just reinforced that idea in my head. year. ©2004 playinginfog.com |