[ATTENDED: October 13, 2022] Alex Nicol [rescheduled from May 7, 2020]
I was pretty excited when The House of Love announced a 30th anniversary tour of the States in 2020. It would be their first time playing here in 30 years. Then COVID, obviously.
Opening for them was Alex Nicol. Impressively, when these dates were rescheduled, Alex Nicol was still the opening guy. The show was originally set for White Eagle Hall in NJ. Rescheduled shows were moved around (no more NJ) but I would happily go to Underground Arts to see them.
A few weeks from now Travis is playing Union Transfer. Opening for them is Ben Ottewell (of Gomez). Every poster listed him as “Of Gomez.” For some reason I got my anniversary tours mixed up and thought that “Of Gomez” was for this show. So I went into Nicol’s set expecting him to sound like Gomez. He doesn’t.
Alex Nicol is a musician from Montreal. His bandmates all had wonderfully French sounding names Simon Trottier (guitar), Emmanuel Ethier (bass), and Bucky Wheaton (drums) [aside from Bucky, obviously].
Alex played acoustic guitar and Trottier played some amazing electric guitar solos over Nicol’s moody songs.
He played one song on keyboards (“Rising”) and Ethier played violin on one of the songs as well.
Overall I enjoyed his set and he seemed like a nice guy.
I took a picture of the setlist:
- Mirage
- Simple Fires
- Eye for an Eye
- Working on My Tan
- Simmer
- Rising
- When You’re Blue
- It’s Been a Long Year
- Hollywood
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