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Getting
warm: Hot Hot Heat's Steve Bays. Photo: Joe Putrock
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That One About the Lady
By John Brodeur
Hot Hot Heat, French Kicks, the Unicorns
Northern
Lights, Dec. 5
The last time Victoria, B.C.-based Hot Hot Heat came through
town (at Valentines in April), their album, Make up the
Breakdown, had just been rereleased by Warner Bros., and
the lead single, “Bandages,” had recently been serviced to
commercial radio. The college crowd, of course, had been hip
to the band’s danceable indie rock for a while, and they packed
the venue solid for one of the most energetic live performances
this year.
A lot has changed in eight months. “Bandages” became an inescapable
Top-10 modern-rock hit, and the band have steadily increased
their profile with nonstop touring, television appearances
and a string of less-successful follow-up singles. It could
have been assumed that the kids would come out en force to
see their new heroes at Northern Lights on Friday night, what
with all the increased exposure presumably expanding their
draw. In reality, the attendance was no larger than at the
Valentine’s show and the crowd was decidedly standoffish.
Case in point: One audience member was overheard shouting
for “track number four.” Song titles, anyone? The detachment
may have a lot to do with the change in venue. Last time around,
singer Steve Bays bounced off the other band members like
a free electron, and leapt about as if the floor were covered
with molten lava. On the considerably more sterile Northern
Lights stage, all the immediacy of a small club was lost,
making the band members look out-of-place and terribly self-aware.
To their credit, the Heat gave it a good shot. Taking the
stage to the opening riff from their current hit, “Talk to
Me, Dance With Me,” they kicked off a 50-minute set, culled
almost entirely from Breakdown and their previous EP,
Knock Knock Knock. Some of the high points came early:
The two should-be singles, “Oh, Goddamnit,” with its Strokes-y
bass line, and the fashion-victim critique, “Get in or Get
Out,” were as engaging as they are on record, and displayed
the band’s pop sensibilities in full flower. Unfortunately,
as the set wore on, the Heat appeared to be losing steam,
and it became more and more apparent that the audience was
just waiting around to hear one song. By the time they played
their big hit to close the set, it felt rote and perfunctory.
Even the sea of flailing teenage bodies at the foot of the
stage seemed color-by-numbers. The band axed their planned
encore, apparently due to Bays having shredded his voice,
but I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to call it a night
when the crowd started filing out immediately after the last
song.
The Brooklyn-based French Kicks may have been another reason
that the headliners felt stale, as their warm-up set made
all other comers look positively silly. Equipped with an army
of keyboards, a bottomless supply of Gibson SGs, and a sound
that mines the best elements of ’80s college rock and jagged
early-’90s D.C. postpunk, the Kicks came off as a smarter,
hipper version of their touring partners. The bottom-heavy
sound mix obscured some of the subtleties of the dense arrangements,
but their performance didn’t miss a beat. Nick Stumpf appears
to have attended the Stephen Malkmus academy for artsy lead-singer
cool, and the band nailed some soulful three-part harmonies
on “Wrong Side” and “Close to Modern” from last year’s One
Time Bells LP. Watch for the new Kicks record in 2004,
when Hot Hot Heat will likely be opening for them instead
of the other way around.
The Unicorns opened the evening with a brief set of songs
from their fine debut, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re
Gone? The Montreal natives oozed shticky charisma and
songwriting prowess, but they failed to capture the audience’s
attention more than fleetingly with their synth-fueled folk
implosion.
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