Dears @ Mercury
Sorry for the mystery blogger who couldn't get a ticket and took over Stereogum as recourse. Here are photos from the Dears' show...
Posted at 2:35 AM
January 16, 2005
Staff
- Founder/Editor-In-Chief: Scott Lapatine
- Executive Editor: Amrit Singh
- Senior Writer: Brandon Stosuy
Info
- About | Advertising | Newsletter | Playlist
Contact
Get Flash to see our mp3 player. Here are our mp3s:
Cold Cave - Life Magazine (»)
Pants Yell! - Cold Hands (»)
Bill Quick - Take Me Away (»)
Fool's Gold - Surprise Hotel (Wallpaper's Mariah Mashup) (»)
Air - Sing Sang Sung (Black Moth Super Rainbow Remix) (»)
Avi Buffalo - What's In It For (»)
Vampire Weekend - Horchata (»)
Small Black - Kings Of Animals (»)
Max Tundra - Which Song (Passion Pit Remix) (»)
Cold Cave - Theme From Tomorrowland (»)
Tegan And Sara - Hell (»)
Jeff The Brotherhood - Bone Jam (»)
Mount Eerie - Wind's Dark Poem (»)
Tigercity - Fake Gold (»)
Yeasayer - Ambling Alp (»)
Drink Up Buttercup - Even Think (Andrew W.K. Remix) (»)
Florence And The Machine - You've Got The Love (The xx Remix) (»)
Cold Cave - The Laurels of Erotomania (»)
Jookabox - Phantom Don't Go (»)
Jookabox - You Cried Me (»)
the blonde girl is a very pretty one... I believed she was Mena Suvari when I opened the page
Score = 0
Am I the only person who thinks that the Dears are totally over? Bleah. I'm sure it was a good show, but boooring. And what is with that ID tag in Murray's neck?
Score = 0
their whole morrissey fetish is tired.
Score = 0
they're not that morrisey. gotta love the odd time signature grooves.
Score = 0
Wow, did somebody just wake this band up befor the photo was taken?!? It looks like the stage is the last place they want to be...
Score = 0
I agree. I'm not sure why soo many people in the US are hyping the Dears. They aren't very good, and their live show is pretty terrible. I've seen them a couple times (once at a festival in Toronto, once opening for Morrissey), and they did absolutely nothing for me. The 90s Britpop bands did it waaaaay better than these montreal kids.
Score = 0
so my boyfriend and I just decided, ok, let'd download a dears song and see what all this building "hype" is
we got lost in the plot. ummm, i'm not even hating, i'm just in utter shock, my bf who was not even listening carefully was in the other room "what morrisssey song is this"? he said...it's not even a tribute to him, it's just a fucking rip off.
Score = 0
i think you tight-ass pretentious americans should stop the hate.
Score = 0
If ya'll ask me, I think that morrissey fellar is trying to sound like the dears....
carry on,
low
Score = 0
I have to admit that the new material isn't so impressive. Their first couple of albums WERE quite good though...and it WAS something a bit different for what was going on at the time that those albums came out...but um...not now. probably not again. It's sad, cause they are nice people too...and yeah, the girls are really pretty.
Score = 0
"i think you tight-ass pretentious americans should stop the hate." -amanda, hmmm... funny how you can tell that people are americans from their EMAIL addresses. anyway, i don't think anyone was "hating" here. just talkin' opinion, which is pretty take it or leave it.
don't want to delve too much into this, but, i've also seen the dears develop throughout the years by dealing with them and knowing them, and their attitude and their show *has* gotten boring. 'bedtime' was a fantastic album, along with that crazy video with murray shaking everywhere, at the time along with everything else that was coming out over here - two-minute miracles, joel plaskett emergency, mike o'neill, the weekend, julie doiron, elevator, mean red spiders, the meligrove band, the carnations, constantines, rhume, royal city, heavy blinkers, etc. (notice I said "here" as in CANADA and not the US) and they are VERY talented, but they need to take it somewhere new. tonnes of smaller new canadian indie labels were garnering success at the same time their album came out (their old label;grenadine, teenage*usa, three gut records, blue skies turn black, matlock, antiantenna, kelp, brobdingnagian, etc.) and it involved a whole new wave for a lot of canadian bands as well, it was a wave that eventually sort of crashed, but now there's new stuff coming in again. i guess that's how it works though...
Score = 0
Just saw them last night in Philadelphia. I have to say, I went in more than half-expecting to dislike them. The little I'd been able to listen to on-line didn't bowl me over, but I had read so much positive press that I figured, for $10, why not just check 'em out.
Honestly, I was immensely impressed by their live show. The Smiths/Morrissey sound doesn't come through nearly as much in person as on the CDs. Indeed, the quiet jangly tendencies of the production on their albums are replaced by raucous, noisy grooves in person. There were moments where I thought I might be watching Arcade Fire or Fiery Furnaces, as far as the precision and intensity were concerned. And so many members of the band are obviosuly and extremely talented with their instruments. One of the tightest performances I've ever seen.
If you're on the fence/indifferent to The Dears now, I highly recommend giving them a shot live next time they come through. They absolutely won me over, and my deck was stacked against them. Maybe they're just one of those bands that's better live than on CD, but even if that's the case, is that such a bad thing these days?
And, since I don't think it's been mentioned yet, the girls are super-duper cute.
Score = 0
i like a good smiths tribute band as much as anyone, but everytime i hear their stuff i just think, this is way too much like the smiths to be of any interest except to those who are too young or ignorant to have heard the real thing.
Score = 0
seems like all you need is a black guy in your indie band these days to land yourself on any popular blog
Score = 0
nj, are you referring to bloc party and tv on the radio??
Score = 0
It's amazing to me how everyone is all "Moz rip-off blah blah" this and "Morrissey sounding blah blah" that, when it's totally obvious they're ripping off Blur, not Morrissey.
C'mon, people, get with it.
Score = 0
yeah. actually the dears are so talented they've actually been able to achieve the perfect hybrid of morrissey and damon alburn. how gifted.
Score = 0
whatever you guys are all a tight asses, ofmontreal could you geek out anymore?
The Dears are awesome and it has nothing to do with Morissey or black people or scenes.
Score = 0
I COULD probably geek out way more, but that wouldn't be very fun now, would it? love the post johnny, har har.
Score = 0
the Salford Lads did this schtick better.
Score = 0
I am sad to read some of the shallow, cheap-shot criticisms being posted here about this energetic, interesting band. From the facile (not to mention borderline homophobic) insistence on their “Morrisseyness” to a pretty pointless discussion of Murray Lightburn’s skin color, some of these ill-reasoned comments here are just silly. I mean, hey, it’s fine to dislike a band and to present a reasoned case as to why you find them derivative, or mawkish, or boring or whatever. …After all, you posters care enough about the band to access this forum and to engage your typing fingers to state your case….so why not provide us some intelligent criticism instead of trite invective which doesn’t really tell us anything?
For me, The Dears are one of the best things to happen to my ears in quite a while. Yes, The Smiths are an apparent influence of the band. (And to those who consider this a liability, I ask, Have you ever actually listened to The Smiths? …Go and borrow your big sister’s “The Queen is Dead” album, actually listen to that thing, and then come back and dismiss The Smiths.) When I put on “Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique”, or “Thank You Good Night Sold Out”, or “No Cities Left” I hear much more than just another cut-rate Morrissey. I hear Suede, Pink Floyd, Tindersticks, Love (the 60’s band…if you don’t know them, check them out!) and early Japan (David Sylvian’s band…and their late 1970’s orchestral rock stuff…before they became Duran Duran’s wet dream). But aside from all of this, when I hear The Dears I hear music that has given me hope for this generation.
Score = 0
The Dears are like any band anywhere, Canada, the US or the UK. Are they ifluenced by other bands? Absolutely. Which bands aren't? All of us are products of our parents but just because we may have similar characteristics, hair colour, facial features, etc., doesn't mean that we're ripping them off or that we want to be just like them. In fact many of us do our best to differentiate ourselves from our parents in whatever ways we can, just as The Dears and other bands try to do from their influences until they are an influence to other themselves. Are The Smiths, Blur, or any other of the bands they've been accused of 'ripping off' really such band influences to have? Do you think that Good Charlotte is going to go on the influence any bands in future that will have any kind of substance musically?
(These questions are really more rhetorical than anything, but feel free to respond.)
Score = 0
I was thinking of going to their London gig (if the idiot scalper I bought the tickets from on ebay sends them on time...waiting for the promoter...) but maybe I shouldn't go with a female friend, considering how good-looking the singers are. They probably speak French right? I'll charm them with my French and my knowledge of Montreal (used to live there)
Score = 0
I am not quite sure why everyone is comparing the Dears with the Smiths or Morissey. They are doing the same thing to this other band I like called Flannelmouth. It seems as though the media cannot escape boring "sounds like"... In any case, Flannelmouth and the Dears are unique, super cool and worth checking out. How was that London gig by the way?
Score = 0
Just found this page after looking for pictures because I saw them this evening in Chicago.
Every single one of you who say they sound like The Smiths need to go out and actually buy a Smiths album and listen to it instead of namechecking The Smiths as being ripped off by The Dears.
Because a singer has a vocal style that resembles another vocalist doesn't mean the band sounds like that...
How could you possibly compare any of the Dears' songs to Smiths songs musically?
Some of you are complete morons.
Score = 0
Just found this page after looking for pictures because I saw them this evening in Chicago.
Every single one of you who say they sound like The Smiths need to go out and actually buy a Smiths album and listen to it instead of namechecking The Smiths as being ripped off by The Dears.
Because a singer has a vocal style that resembles another vocalist doesn't mean the band sounds like that...
How could you possibly compare any of the Dears' songs to Smiths songs musically?
Some of you are complete morons.
Score = 0
Um,
Okay first off I've only heard one song from The Dears on muchVideoFlow and I loved it!...It actually made me cry it was so sad (and how I related to it so much). I just....Who's that guy on the keybored?....Um,
Okay first off I've only heard one song from The Dears on muchVideoFlow and I loved it!...It actually made me cry it was so sad (and how I related to it so much). I just....Who's that guy on the keybored?....<3...Tell me cause I'm in utter oblivion right now. I can't even download anyof their songs.
Score = 0
Are you "critics" fucking serious?
Are you even ever old enough to have seen a Smiths or Morrisey performance? I am and have seen numerous live performances by the Smiths and own their entire library. I have also had the pleasure on numerous occasions to have witnessed the magic of a Dears performance. I will admit that Murray's voice is a similar range, and the Dears were motivated and inspired by the Smiths, but this is totally original music. Give it the attention it deserves. You are obviously not music lovers. You are totally reactionary and ignorant. The Dears are one of the most refreshing bands to come out of North America in a decade. AND Canada has it over the States as far as originality nad courage in music goes... thanks to our innovative and trulty independent spirit. Go road test; The Weakerthans, The Constantines, Broken Social Scene, Stars, The Stills, Arcade Fire, Metric, Jim Bryson on and on and on it goes. Ferchrissakes!!!!!
Score = 0