Michael Gravel Edmonton Writer

Journal

Mar
4
2007

Do Make Say Think - Amazing

I had the absolute pleasure of attending Friday's performance by Do Make Say Think, a Canadian eight-piece band out of Toronto. They played The Starlight Room on 102nd street. In short, I loved their show. DMST most certainly aren't your typical Canadian rock and roll band. Instead of the straight-ahead verse-chorus-verse song format, they create soundtrack-esque soundscapes with guitars, horns, violin, and drums. Their sound is hard to describe, but I'll take a stab at it. They create bombastic compositions that build from gentle openings and oscillate between beautiful bombast and single instrument bridges with a bit of baroque madness thrown in. One must hear it for one's self. It's very artsy stuff and not immediately digestible.

They played about ten songs spanning over roughly 90 minutes. Multi-instrumentalists all, they each took turns playing bass, guitar, and horns. A really talented bunch of cats. As with any night out, my favorite part of the evening was doing some people watching. The crowd was as I expected - a blend of young, neutered hipsters and young, black-frame-glasses University students. I had to chuckle at the level of conformity at a supposedly non-mainstream music show. Ah, well. We were all there to hear the music so it scarcely matters. I don't think anyone walked away disappointed.

My only bitch about the show was the fact that the doors opened a half hour later than stated on the ticket. In June, that wouldn't be a problem and I wouldn't even complain. In early March, when it's a ball-freezing -18, it's a load of shit and utterly unacceptable. My toes didn't warm up until halfway through the opening act (two hours after the doors opened). To the jackasses at the Starlight that made 40 people freeze their asses off unnecessarily for a half hour, and to quote my good friend Scott Bremner, I hope you die in a fire.

Information on Do Make Say Think can be found here. Pick up a record and check them out, if you haven't already. Not your average everyday rock band.

2 Comments (Closed)

1

Fergis McGillicuddy

The Starlight is bad for having late shows. I remember checking out Frog Eyes and Wolf Parade and the opener didn’t start for two and a half hours after the doors opened. I can understand waiting for an hour…but two and a half?

Not much a person can do except bitch about it as the live venues in the city are dropping like flies.

Fergis

2

Mike Gravel

Yeah, that late start shit really burns my ass. I saw the Headstones at The Rev about 10 years ago. Doors at 8:00. Openers took the stage at about 11:00. Headstones didn’t stroll on the stage until about 12:45. That’s fucking ludicrous.

Van Morrison, on the other hand, started his show at exactly 7:30 and ended at 9:07. No opening act. I really appreciated that.

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