Islands – Live @ The IMC

April 24, 2008

After seeing the totally hilarious Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I headed over to the Independent Media Center (aka The IMC) to catch Canadian indie pop heroes, Islands. We were in for a big surprise when we got there and Headlights were playing. I had no idea they were on the bill and it was awesome to see them play their Some Racing, Some Stopping material again. The songs seemed much tighter than last time I saw them at the CD debut, which undoubtedly came from their ridiculous touring schedule.

Islands took the stage dressed in all black (but sans white makeup) and immediately went into the sprawling epic “Vertigo (If It’s A Crime)” which they then transitioned into “The Arm”. The six-member band did a wonderful job of recreating all the sounds from the album whether it was violin, keyboards, crazy tropical percussion, or clarinet. The band’s set consisted mostly of new songs which was perfectly fine with me since I’ve been jamming to Arm’s Way ever since it leaked a few week’s back. The two Asian violin/keyboard players (aka The Chow Brothers) were fun to watch, as they really got into the music and did some cool looping with their instrumentation.

The band threw in a couple of some old favorites such as “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby”, “Volcanoes”, and “When There’s A Will, There’s A Whalebone” during the main set which brought much joy to the crowd. I was really expecting “Rough Gem” which Nick teased during one song but they opted not to play the song or “Jogging Gorgeous Summer” which is a personal fave of mine. Other than these slight setbacks the set was great and I loved seeing the new favorites like “Creeper” and “Pieces of You” live. The IMC turned out to be a great video for the band (especially with all the colorful paintings) and Nick even pointed out how much he liked the place.

Islands ended the main set with their previously-Unicorns-now-Islands song “Abominable Snow”. They nailed the punchy guitar and squeaky violin combo on the song, and although the the track hasn’t ever been officially released most of the crowd where I was standing knew all the words. The band couldn’t have picked a better encore in my opinion, they played a full 10 minute version of Swans (Life After Death) which I still think is band’s masterpiece. So overall I had a really fun night and Arm’s Way was cemented as one of my favorites of the year. You can pre-order Arm’s Way now at Insound or just grab it on May 20th when it’s released.

MP3 Swans (Life After Death)
MP3 The Arm
MP3 Creeper

Check out Pictures For Kids Who Can’t Read Good for my full set of photos from the night.

Posted by Taylor in Live