Wednesday, October 19, 2011
We opened up our HPX Day 2 to Rich Aucoin’s epic album release show at St. Matthew’s United Church. I usually hesitate to use the word epic, but in this case it’s more than appropriate. Aucoin brought along 80+ people to make up a choir and band. He started off the night with local musicians playing a song before playing his album, including Jenn Grant singing an awesome rendition of “Eye of the Tiger”. Though it certainly was not a flawless set, when you have 80+ on stage with you at various times, it can get a little crazy.
Aucoin spent a lot of time sitting and singing at the piano, which is not common to one of his sets. However, it was evident pretty early on how difficult it is for the man to stay in one place, as Aucoin played trumpet, drums and even stood on the pews in the crowd. What was common to his usual set is that he had the crowd sing along. Though he requested the crowd not to clap, it was too difficult not to. As Aucoin is full of energy, members of the audience couldn’t help but get up out of their sets and dance in the aisles.
By the end of the set, it seemed like it wasn’t just his night, it was a celebration for the Halifax music scene. And I couldn’t be happier to have been a part of the celebration.
Quivers played to a hometown crowd at Olympic Community Hall. Though they certainly were not the main attraction, they managed to bring along a decent crowd for their noisy rock set. They were fun to watch and full of potential, but the band has some work to do in tightening up their set.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart put on a rockin’ set at Olympic Community Hall. The 5-piece from New York creates a dream-pop sound with Kip Berman right up front on vocals. Peggy Wang’s vocals complement those of Berman, but her works on keys helps to define the band’s melodic sound. The band does not necessarily pull out any tricks for their shows, but they manage to win the crowd over with their dreamy sound.
I ended off the night with Thee Oh Sees from San Francisco. The band drew quite a crowd to Reflections Cabaret and had members of the audience and security covered in blood. Think crowd surfing, audience members jumping on stage, and a crazy crowd right up front. Vocalist/guitarist John Dwyer fronts this psychedelic pop rock that seems to know exactly how to get the crowd going. I can’t think of a better way to have ended the night.
buying shots for bands 
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