Hot Hot Heat
with The Anniversary, Apollo Sunshine
Friday April 18th, 2003 @ Showplace Theatre, Buffalo

There are good live bands and there are bad live bands, and every now and then there are concerts that showcase both extremes in one night. With that said, let me describe for you the scene that unfolded at the Showplace Theatre on Good Friday of this year.

Hot Hot Heat, who have been selling out shows left and right across North America (and even in England), apparently are a little too wimpy for the “Tuffalo” kids since the show was not sold out and the place was pretty empty when we first arrived. The crowd did pick up later however, and as we would soon find out, the fashionably late showgoers had the right idea all along.

The show opened with a band called Apollo Sunshine, hailing from Massachusetts. They kickstarted things with a lot of energy and some catchy pop songs featuring Beatles/Beach Boys-esque harmonies. They had a standard 3-piece set up with guitar, bass and drums, although the bass player sometimes played keyboard as well (often simultaneously with his bass) and the guitar player sometimes alternated to a slide guitar. They started off strong, but as their set progressed their energy seemed too unfocused and their songs became chaotic. Towards the end, it just started to drag as they went off on too many hippie jams and funk excursions (which ironically would only foreshadow the next band’s performance).

Speaking of which, let’s move on to The Anniversary. I will start by asking the obvious question in many people’s minds: what the hell happened to this band? As much as I can appreciate the fact that they broke out of the emo pigeonhole, now they are just boring and lame. They don’t even look like the same 5 people pictured on the inside of the cd. I’m not one for judging bands by their appearance, but you know something’s gone horribly wrong when 3 of the 4 male members are sporting mustaches, long hair, and buttoned plaid shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Not to mention the fact that the lead singer was wearing an Angus hat and striped pants, and the drummer was actually wearing a rolled up bandana headband. With most bands I would have thought it was a joke, but considering that no one in the band cracked a smile for the entire set, I somehow doubt it.

The band stood around smoking and drinking wine on stage for quite a while to establish their new rock star attitudes, and it seemed like there was more smoke billowing from the stage than from anywhere else in the building. Still, I thought maybe things would be alright once they finally strapped on their guitars. Nope. They just looked like they could care less up there; the singing was like an obligation that they didn’t want to bother with, and they each seemed to be off in their own world, playing their instruments without any cohesiveness or chemistry. Not only that but it was like they were having a contest to see who could play their instruments louder and more annoying. The sound guy should take part of the blame for this, as the keyboards in particular completely overpowered the other instruments, but in reality there was much more evil at work than merely a careless sound guy.

I didn’t hate the most recent Anniversary album, “Your Majesty”, but the songs sounded a hundred times worse live. One of my favourite songs from the album, Devil On My Side, was completely stripped of its energy and barely recognizable. Many of the songs were ruined by adding annoying new keyboard sounds, overindulgent guitar soloing, and aimless extended jams. The Anniversary complimented these lacklustre performances with some pretentious new material, such as the touching ballad, “Jesus Came To L.A.” During each song the lead singer/guitarist would tuck his lit cigarette into the strings in the neck of his guitar because it was obviously too much hassle for him to find an ashtray, or to wait for the end of the set to light up another smoke.

The final song seemed to go on forever with another lengthy prog rock improvisation, and just as I was about to nod off, lo and behond, they jumped into one of their old songs (the only one of the night). It was a slowed-down psyched-out version of D In Detroit, and it sounded like they were sabotaging it on purpose. The real capper on the performance was when the lead singer/guitarist used a bottle of Jack Daniels to perform a slide guitar solo before taking a long swig of it. It doesn’t get much more lame and contrived than that.

Thankfully, Hot Hot Heat saved the night from The Anniversary’s mean spirited stage presence. As soon as they took the stage and started into “Touch You Touch You”, it was like a dark cloud had been lifted from the club. They provided near perfect reproductions of songs from both their Knock Knock Knock EP and Make Up The Breakdown with genuine intensity and rhythmic precision, which got the crowd moving.

The lead singer twitched and pranced around stage delivering lyrics in his distinctive shrill voice, occasionally stopping to pound out some notes on his keyboard. The guitarist and bassist stabbed at their guitars with ferocity while ex-d.b.s. drummer Paul Hawley belted his drum kit with power reminscent of The Jam’s Rick Buckler.

Although they are also showing signs of mellowing out a little, they still rocked the joint fully and completely, and sealed their reptutation as a great live band. Hot Hot Heat are yet another example of where the U.S. might want to stop and take a few pointers from Canada — that is, if they could pull themselves away from all those wars they’ve been starting lately. Perhaps that explains what this whole hippie revival is all about, because I sure don’t see any other good justification for playing boring, pretentious music. — Sean