encore:

thanks to rob f and arran

commodore ballroom
support from fuck buttons

reviews/comments

from rob fickeisen:

this was a better show than seattle. the sound was very good all around, with huge bass..

aside from the usual drunken hollering during slow tunes and quiet, the crowd seemed very into it.

at the end of batcat, the power cut out to stage left (stuart and dominic) just as it had during “jim morrison” at the seattle show. the song ended right after (it was near the end anyway, but i don’t know if they stopped early or not). i don’t think most of the people in the crowd even noticed (my wife didn’t realize until i told her). being the last song, they left the stage. the crowd was quite worked up for an encore, and began chanting and stomping. there seemed to be some confusion for several minutes as the tech guys turned off equipment and started putting guitars away, then stopping suddenly… i got the feeling the band wanted to play one more, but were trying to figure out if they could get power back on. from where i was standing, it was clear the power was still off to the bass amp and stuart’s guitar amp. there was more yelling, chanting, and confusion on stage until stuart come out. he started to explain that they wanted to do another song, but there were some technical problems. at that moment, power came back on, and the rest of the band came out to play one more song.

stuart made a couple comments while waiting for guitars to be tuned for the encore: “we weren’t planning on any encores, so you guys should feel special.” and, “normally i’d tune my own guitar, but i’m drunk off my face right now to be quite honest.” the funniest blurb of the night, from stuart while waiting for his guitar to be tuned for the encore: “i’m actually quite surprised because when we’ve played vancouver before it’s been horrible… no really… that was probably your older brothers and sisters though.”

a memorable show, and it made me wish i’d been able to catch both portland and victoria as well… next time.

from wade:

i'm pretty sure the vancouver crowd saved the band's bc memories from being shitty, after last night in victoria. not only were there no d-bags, but talking was less (still some on like herod though, which led stuart to turn up his pedal volume, or so i think) not to mention a solid 5-10 minutes of stomping and cheering which led to a fabled encore despite the fact that by turning up his pedal so high sb blew the amp/ power.

highlights of the show were my brother-in-law getting stabbed by a shattered drum stick, and in response to sb asking 'how everyone's doing' someone yelled 'barry's a cunt." an awesome weekend of music.

from arran:

i'm jim morrison, i'm dead - dominic had a capo on the 4th/5th fret on this one
tracy - included the phone conversation sample at the beginning, which caused a few members of the band to look at barry and laugh

the gig really was great. vancouver can be a really terrible crowd sometimes but they were great last night.

http://alternativemusic.suite101.com....mogwai.....review_vancouver

mogwai's us tour diary

from mogwai.co.uk:

ah vancouver, there’s nothing quite as awe-inspiring and life affirming as stepping off the tour-bus and seeing 2 people emerging from a huge dustbin. we even had a special guard to look after the bus while we were away from it. so, the day consisted of being jealous of dominic while his brother whisked him away for a lovely day while we wasted precious time by playing guitar hero in the dressing room. people loved fuck buttons’ set and it made me wonder how brutally strong the lsd must be in this city. i mean, some guy shouting into a children’s toy while another mentally ill person screams monkey noises into a cheap effects pedal really just isn’t enjoyable unless you’ve been fed an heroic dose of hallucinogenic drugs. our show was really very good, we thought. the crowd were amazing and totally different from vancouver audiences of the past (who sucked). best show of the tour so far. and now for a great monster of a drive to san francisco (1000 miles).

long, boring and internet-free journey on the bus so barry and foxy (lighting designer) decide to buy some “40’s” at a truck stop halfway through the journey. look it up dudes, it’s big bad bottles of booze for gangstas like us. we arrive at the hotel at about 9 pm and go out for more drinks, which turns out to be a stupid idea as usual. a crack lady kept asking us for money and when we didn’t give her any more she told us we would die tomorrow. nice.