I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 15, 2019] Preoccupations

I saw Preoccupations open for Protomartyr about a year ago.  At the time I wrote:

Preoccupations is a band from Calgary Alberta Canada.  They were originally called Viet Cong. They put out a stunning album called Viet Cong and then met all kinds of grief for the name (shows cancelled, etc), so they changed it to Preoccupations.  It’s amazing that a band as minor and indie as them would get so much grief, but whatever.

I thought their show was fantastic.  I loved the sound of their music and the energy that the band brought.

This show was similarly good–although perhaps the smaller venue of the Foundry made the band seem more dynamic.

I see that the setlist was largely the same for both shows (they haven’t put out new material since New Material in 2018).  I find it fascinating that much of the setlist comes from their first album Viet Cong.  I wonder why that is.

I also feel like for this show the band was considerably quieter than last time.  I realize that at the last show I was in front of speakers, and this one I was a little further back and therefore muffled.  But it seems like the overall wall of sound was somewhat lessened.

Here’s this year’s version of “Newspaper Spoons” compared to last year’s version.  Perhaps the volume is just louder in last year’s but it feels like the roar is toned down somewhat.

“Continental Shelf” sounds pretty similar to last year’s version (wow, the sound quality was so much better last year), although I think there may be more synths from Scott Munro.  I really love the guitar riff in this song.

Like last time, they followed it up with “Espionage,” a faster almost new wave song.  As with most of these songs I love that Matthew Flegel plays so high on the bass.  They stayed with the New Material album for the next song.  “Antidote” features a really cool drum pattern from Mike Wallace.

Last show I was in front of Christiansen and he was really fun to watch for the way he really got into everything.  This time I was in front of Scott Munro and I loved being able to see all of the cool chords and melodies (and noise) he played, like these in “Zodiac.”

What’s interesting about many of their songs is that bassist/singer Matt Flegel plays really high notes and chords on the bass.  I enjoyed watching this on “Silhouettes,” a terrific song with a cool 80’s indie rock sound.

I absolutely love the drum intro to “March of Progress.”  I was so taken with it last year that I didn’t even realize the interesting bass that Flegel is playing.  You can watch last year’s video and see Wallace from a different angle.  I also really enjoyed watching the chords Munro played during this song.

They ended the set with two songs that they didn’t play last time.

The first was “Bunker Buster” from the Viet Cong album.  It had lots of repeated guitar chords and more of Flegel’s deep vocals.  Interestingly when he spoke, he was very polite and friendly.

They ended with a song I didn’t know.  It’s a slower song called “Select Your Drone” and it comes from a cassette only release (called Cassette) from 2014.  The song starts quietly but it runs about 8 minutes long and ended with a wonderfully wild conclusion from Munro.

I really enjoyed seeing them again.  i can’t help but think that the sound was less overwhelming this time–like they were going for a little more subtlety.

Or maybe The Foundry is just a better venue.

Union Transfer, October 15, 2019	Foundry, November 30, 2018
Newspaper Spoons ∇	Newspaper Spoons ∇
Continental Shelf ∇	Continental Shelf ∇
Espionage ℵ	Espionage ℵ
Antidote ℵ	Silhouettes ∇
Zodiac ¶	Antidote ℵ
Silhouettes ∇	Decompose ℵ
March of Progress ∇	Zodiac ¶
Bunker Buster ∇	Disarray ℵ
Select Your Drone ‰	Memory ¶
	March of Progress ∇
	Death ∇

ℵ = New Material (2018)
¶ = Preoccupations (2016)
∇ = Viet Cong (2015)
‰ = Cassette (2014)