I first saw We Were Promised Jetpacks on an awesome Fat Cat Records bill at The El Mocambo with Brakes and The Twilight Sad back in 2009. I got a chance to see them again last night at Lee's Palace.
The Edinburgh Scotland band put on an awesome show, as I knew they would. Adam Thompson fills the room with his powerful and highly emotive voice. All together, they fill out the rest of the WWPJ sound with bombastic yet dynamic and melodic guitars, bass and drums.
They don't mess around with a lot of stage banter, other than a sincere thanks to everyone for coming out and seeing this band from far away, and they don't play the encore game. Their solid set featured tunes new and old, and peaked with a rousing rendition of "Quiet Little Voices". It was a fantastic night out at Lee's for a fantastic band.
Check out some of my favourite tunes from the band's set.
Scotland's We Were Promised Jetpacks are an intense band who have a new album called Unravelling on the way for October 14. We got to hear "Night Terror" and now we get to hear "I Keep It Composed". It's a riff-heavy track that keeps a steady pace of intensity.
They also released the first track on the album, "Safety in Numbers". Take a listen:
They're on tour and passing through Toronto on October 19, playing with The Twilight Sad at The Phoenix Concert Theatre. Both bands are incredible live so I suggest you join me and lots of other fans at the show.
This tune has an amazing build in dynamic intensity. First the drums, then the grimy bass, some sparse guitar noodling, the second guitar, then the verse, chorus, big jam out at the end... This one's going to be amazing live.
"Night Terror" is the first song we get to hear from We Were Promised Jetpacks' forthcoming album Unravelling. It comes out October 6th in the UK and the rest of Europe and October 14th in the US. Hopefully they'll release it in Canada, too.
They've announced a whole pile of tour dates, including two Canadian dates: a stop in Montreal on October 18 at Il Motore and a stop in Toronto at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on October 19. I hope to be there, camera in tow.
Great Scottish indie rock band We Were Promised Jetpacks have a live album coming out February 25. It's going to be called E Rey – Live In Philadelphia and I bet it will be amazing because I saw these guys at the El Mocambo here in Toronto and they really shine in a live environment. Until you get your ears on the full release, check out the tune "Peace Sign".
The wonderful lads in We Were Promised Jetpacks have released a video for "Human Error" from their most recent release In The Pit of the Stomach. It's all so emotional.
I had the pleasure of seeing We Were Promised Jetpacks live with Brakes and The Twilight Sad at a Fat Cat Records tour stop at the Elmo here in Toronto. I was duly impressed. They've got a new album called In the Pit of the Stomach coming out on October 4. Here's the video for the first single, "Medicine". Love it!
Looks like you can also trade your email address for a download of "Act on Impulse" at their web site.
Fat Cat Records’ tour hit Toronto’s El Mocambo on Saturday October 10th and I was lucky enough to be there. The El Mocambo’s changed quite a bit since I played there more than 10 years ago. It looks good, and sounds good, although I personally found their sound system pushing way too much bass.
Brakes, or BrakesBrakesBrakes as they are known in the US, hit the stage first. For some reason I thought that We Were Promised Jetpacks were going to be the first band on, so while I got over my feeling that I may have missed We Were Promised Jetpacks, I got on to enjoying Brakes.
There are a couple of common elements to both Brakes and Jetpacks, so I’ll mention them up front. Both bands are tight and energetic live performers, and both bands seemed pleased as punch that people on this side of the Atlantic had heard of them, had heard their music, and had come out to see them. Brakes’ singer remarked at one point that this was the best show that they had played. The audience was attentive and enthusiastic in response to all three bands. So much for the stereotype that Toronto audiences are reserved and hard on newcomers.
Brakes played a tight set that covered all their albums – Touchdown, The Beatific Visions, and Give Blood. All are available on emusic if you’re interested, although Touchdown and their live album Rock Is Dodelijk are listed under BrakesBrakesBrakes and The Beatific Visions and Give Blood are listed under Brakes.
Highlights of the Brakes set included "Don't Take Me To Space (Man)", "Spring Chicken" and "Hey Hey". They even through in a couple of covers – of Camper van Beethoven and Johnny Cash. They played a good mix of up-beat songs and more mellow tunes, including a solo acoustic number to fill time while the electric guitar player changed a string.
Here's the video for "Don't Take Me To Space (Man)". Great song.
We Were Promised Jetpacks were up next. I gather from the increase in the number of folks right in front of the stage, these lads are better known around here than Brakes. Singer Adam Thompson has quite the powerful voice, which he demonstrated through his seeming desire to sing loud enough to be heard above the band without the need for his microphone. They hit the highlights from their album These Four Walls, which is on emusic and includes the great single "Quiet Little Voices".
Here's a video of them doing "Quiet Little Voices" from the Elmo show.
The Twilight Sad were the headliners. They thanked everyone for coming, mentioning that they’d been through town with Mogwai some months ago, and thanked their two very impressive openers and began a near-relentless pummeling of the audience’s eardrums. I had mentioned previously that I thought that this band would really shine live. They are a good live band, and I think I have more appreciation for them than I did when I walked in. On the other hand, their singer seems to like to engage the left side of the stage more than the audience, and their overall lack of dynamics becomes a bit like being hit in the head with a rubber mallet for an hour.
Songs from their latest album and a few that I knew from Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters shone through the wall of noise. Overall, I’m glad I saw them, but will rush out to see Brakes and We Were Promised Jetpacks well before I’ll go out of my way to see another Twilight Sad show. In short, for a band that I thought would win me over with their live show, I enjoy them more on album.
Here are a few videos. First up is "Reflection Of The Television" which opens the new album Forget the Night Ahead and opened their show.
Then we have "I Became A Prostitute", Also from Forget the Night Ahead.
And after that, check out the acoustic version of the same song. This one is from Laundro Matinee and shows off what a great song this is. You can always tell if a song is truly great by stripping it down to acoustic guitar and vocals.
And here's "That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy" from Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters.
This week I have three, count 'em, three concert nights out that should give my earplugs a good workout.
The first comes tomorrow with one of my greatest influences musically - from his solo work, to Sugar and back to Husker Du - Bob Mould at The Mod Club.
Then, on Wednesday night, I'm off to see Built To Spill's second Toronto show at Lee's Palace.
Music from all three bands is available at emusic.
Here are a couple of clips from BrakesBrakesBrakes
Here's The Twilight Sad's video for "That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy". I have a feeling that this band would really shine in live performance.
