This Will Destroy You w/ John LaMonica
Lee's Palace
Toronto, ON
Monday, May 30, 2011
With regards to the band, this isn't a positive review, but I had to share my thoughts (if only to take some heat or to maybe even help someone improve; there's a good part towards the end). The day began with myself on the fence about checking out Friendly Fires over at the Phoenix; a band for whom I was told was a lot of fun to experience live. This mixed with the lovely weather we received yesterday throughout the GTA really pushed me to go check out a fun show in the city. Unfortunately, due to illness the band was unable to perform in Toronto and as a result we were left scrambling to find something to do.
The majority of my concert-going experiences have been of the larger nature, generally. I've seen a handful of shows at the Air Canada Centre, the Molson Amphitheatre, and then some of relatively smaller, yet large venues like the Kool Haus where alot of the times gigs are booked well in advance and I know who's in town ahead of time. I have been to a bunch of smaller shows for bands that I already knew of at smaller venues in the city, like Lee's Palace or the Horseshoe Tavern, but rarely have I entered blindly into a show just to check out a new band. Upon searching Twitter and Google after dinner yesterday and browsing various Toronto websites I wasn't able to locate a definitive listing that would help narrow down our search so we decided to check out Lee's Palace for a band called This Will Destroy You.
Upon previewing their material on YouTube I found myself enjoying what I was listening to and it certainly seemed good for relaxation, studying, or just background music for sitting on the grass on a summer afternoon. I typically don't make it to shows of this nature and picture them being the type of band I would check out for a bit at a festival, but not going out of my way to see. Whatever, $15... let's take the plunge, never know... maybe I'll meet my future wife there.
Hands-down... the worst show I have ever been to. We left after maybe 20 minutes when they played (I think) two songs. One just sounded like noise, the other 15-minutes was some dude pressing the keys and the seated guitarist rocking out (but not actually producing much sound). Awful show. Despite this extreme dislike for how the show turned out, I have talked to a couple people who are actually fans of the band and apparently they have attended shows similar to last night and others that were in the complete opposite direction. For now, I'll maybe check out one of their albums and throw them in the low-priority pile. Too bad. I could be less harsh on it and suggest they ARE that band I would maybe see for a song or two at a festival and not think of again, but they are under the microscope for today since I went out of my way to see them and was actually disappointed by what I saw. Oh well.
Despite this, there was some good that came from things as I was able to help locate a definitive listing of shows in the city (previously used Eye Weekly, but am having issues locating the same information on their new site, The Grid TO). The fine folks at NOW Magazine have a sweet listing of shows (I'm sure they're missing some) which for now will serve me well. Infact, it led me to the band Sons of York for whom sound like they could be fun. May go check them out tomorrow night at The Smiling Buddha in Toronto.
Win some, lose some, but hey... at least now I was able to find a pretty good source of concert listings for last minute shows in the city.
Setlist (courtesy of setlist.fm for reasons listed above):
Little Smoke
Glass Realms
Communal Blood
Burial on the Presidio Banks
Black Dunes
There Are Some Remedies Worse Than the Disease
Killed The Lord, Left For The New World
Quiet
Album Breakdown:
Tunnel Blanket: 5
This Will Destroy You: 1
Young Mountain: 2
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