By Glen Ess (The Cascade) – Email
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This past Mother’s Day, over at O’Neill’s — a local sandwich shop found tucked away in downtown Abbotsford — a sweet, heartfelt little concert was in full swing.
While not billed as a Mother’s Day performance, the evening saw local act Villain Villain partnered with out-of-town touring talent in Painted Fruit and Johnny DeCourcy, and a surprising amount of mothers in the crowd.
With a greater variety of ages present and even a couple families treating their mothers to a night out, this punk show didn’t have the usual amount of punks.
Opening act Villain Villain are one of the newer bands around the block, but they quickly settled into their groove. A loud, bone-shaking groove. It’s been mentioned before that the space isn’t designed around loud, live music — within the small confines of O’Neill’s a drummer alone can sound like an earthquake. Villain Villain’s Nitya St. Laurent certainly tried his best to do so.
St. Laurent, who also plays in the post-punk band Dodgers, created a frenzied, thrilling base around which the rest of Villain Villain could shine. While Villain Villain inspire comparisons with acts ranging from the likes of early Modest Mouse to Interpol, the overwhelming loudness of their instruments, particularly the keys, meant that the lead vocals from Jaydee Bateman were somewhat overshadowed.
This one minor flaw was avoided by the second act, Victoria’s Painted Fruit. While they weren’t anywhere close to Villain Villain on the decibel metre, their performance was characterized by a smooth, crisp style. Every note struck was heard, none drowned out. With their surf-rock, beach-style aesthetic, Painted Fruit were a relaxed, chilled out contrast to the hustle and bustle of Villain Villain.
Painted Fruit also happen to be pulling double duty, having begun a two-month-long tour alongside the night’s final act, Johnny DeCourcy. The Montreal-based baroque pop eccentric is playing across the country with Painted Fruit performing as DeCourcy’s backing band. While on the face of it this might seem a relegation, the foursome from Victoria were easy-going with an infectious sense of humour, and it was clear from their faces that they were greatly enjoying themselves.
That feeling of enjoyment was the defining factor in DeCourcy’s performance, which was spent alternatively thrashing around on the floor, belting lyrics into the mic, wailing on keys, and most impressively, laying down some smooth sax. I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for a saxophone, but when coupled with DeCourcy’s eccentric irreverence and his retro, trippy version of pop rock, the sax worked as the cherry on top to an extravagant and maddeningly amusing performance.
The evening was crammed full of talent, and it’ll live long in my memory; after all, it’s not every day that you get to see a middle-aged mom go crazy for a pop rock auteur dressed up like a cross between a grieving widow and Beetlejuice in a sandwich shop.
