Islands, AWOL One @ Walter's On Washington

Islands
Walter's On Washington played host to Montreal-bred indie rock group Islands with support from MC AWOL One. We were there to sweat through the performances of both of these groups.

Keep reading "Islands, Awol One @ Walter's On Washington" after the jump

I was first supposed to see Islands last September at Emo's in Austin on a triple bill that also featured The National and Blonde Redhead during the weekend of ACL. About three weeks before the scheduled date, they were removed from the bill and replaced by ex-Secret Machine Benjamin Curtis' School of Seven Bells without notice. While School of Seven Bells turned out to be quite good, they were no Islands. I still went to the show, and it was damn good, but my yearning to see Islands grew even stronger.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. As soon as I saw that they were coming to Walter's, I obsessively started checking the ticket-purchasing site to make sure that I would get them the day they went on sale. I was not going to miss this show. FInally the opportunity came, and a week later the tickets were displayed on my fridge.

Fast forward to Wednesday. We walked into Walter's with quite a bit of anticipation for this mid-week show. We missed opener Crayonsmith, and Sebastien Grainger (Death From Above 1979), whose name was on the ticket, was mysteriously absent. What we did walk into was a three-quarters-filled Walter's with a DJ spinning mellow beats on stage. After a stop at the bar, we made our way to the front, stage left, and quickly claimed our spot. The DJ (excuse me for not getting his name, but to be fair, it was never clearly mentioned, only in mumbles) was mixing a version of Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" that was much heavier on the GnR than the mixing, when some random guy walked on stage and started belting out the lyrics to the end of the rock classic. Soon, the same guy, who appeared quite intoxicated on beer and reefer, started belting out rhymes to the beats the DJ was providing. We soon realized that this stoned random was AWOL One.

AWOL One

His set started off really slow, but eventually started to pick up steam after the crowd realized who he was. His voice reminded me of Biggie's after smoking 2 cartons of cigarettes. The California-based rapper, who has collaborated and toured with the likes of KRS-One, Snoop Dogg, Abstract Rude, Kool Keith, Ozomatli and De La Soul, had the crowd moving with his humor-based hip-hop highlighted by the song "Old Babies". Towards the end of AWOL One's set, he brought up collaborator Tabasco, with whom he works in The Shape Shifters, to add vocals to the last four songs. It was hard to get past Tabasco's ridiculous get-up, but once that was out of mind, his flows turned out to be more impressive than AWOL One's (not like that was hard to do...). The longer-than-normal opening set finished with AWOL One, Tabasco and the DJ screaming through Queen's "We Are The Champions," which only left me questioning what exactly they were champions of.

Tabasco

Instead of heading to the bar, or outside to cool off, we decided to stick to our front-row spot so we could get some good pictures of Islands (we still had to use flash due to the horrible lighting in Walter's...damnit!). The long opening set was followed by an even longer set-break. I never really wanted to know what seeing a show in a Native American sweat lodge was like, but I can honestly say that I now know how it feels. I am not sure which, but it was either horribly awesome, or awesomely horrible. By the time Islands made it to the stage, a majority of the crowd was dripping sweat. That did not stop Islands from coming out incredibly strong with a stirring rendition of "Vertigo (If It's a Crime)" off of their new album Arm's Way. Suddenly, the once not -so-excited crowd had smiles on their faces as they were yelling every lyric. The next offering was the first Stereogum-leaked track off of Arm's Way, "The Arm". As the opening track, "The Arm" sets the tone for their whole new album, and it did the same thing for their live show. If every member of the crowd was not into the show after "Vertigo", they sure were beaming now. The anthemic sound of "Kids" anthemic capped off a solid beginning, which featured some of their strongest new material.

Nick Thorburn

Sebastien Chow

Islands' intensity and passion during every song really showed, and translated very well to the sweltering room full of indie-rock poster children. Sporting opaque white shades, frontman Nick Thorburn led the group through Return To The Sea's "Where There's A Will, There's A Whalebone", which featured an uninspired guest spot from AWOL One that filled the spot left vacant by regular Islands collaborator Busdriver. Saved only by a heavy percussion assault during the flow, the song finished with Thorburn reprising his vocal part. Busting out the bass clarinet, guitarist Patrick Gregoire led the band through a fun, almost calypso-like version of "Pieces Of You" segueing into my favorite song off of the new album "J'aime Vous Voire Quitter". This punk-ish song, which features a percussive break heavily influenced by Graceland-era Paul Simon, seems to be a nasty message directed toward former band member Jamie Thompson (J'aime Tambeur). "In The Rushes" proved to be our boiling point, as we moved outside to grab some fresh, cool air (it was 85 outside, but after being in 100+ degree heat inside, it felt great!). While we were outside, Islands took the time to play through their instrumental ode to famed orca Tsuxiit (Su-kee), with the aptly titled "Tsuxiit".

Alex Chow, Sebastien Chow, Nick Thorburn

Aaron Harris, Patrice Agbokou, Patrick Gregoire

We didn't really want to go back inside due to a good conversation with a new friend outside, but the beginning notes of "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" started, and as that was the song that made me an instant fan of Islands, I bolted in through the front door to witness it live. After screaming out each and every lyric, I ran outside to drag Cereal back into the sauna for the end of Islands' set. "Abominable Snowman" served as a nice change of pace before bringing the bouncy pop sounds back out with "Creeper", the second single that Stereogum provided for our listening pleasure months ago. As we got a peek at the setlist, we knew that bowing out early would be a bad idea, as they had "Swans (Life After Death)" from Return To The Sea listed to close out the show. Sure enough Thorburn, Gregoire, drummer Aaron Harris, bassist Patrice Agbokou, and multi Instrumentalists Sebastien Chow and Alex Chow (of no relationship, even though you'd swear they were brothers), returned to the stage to play a ten-minute version of "Swans".

Swans (Life After Death)

While they mainly focused on new material, and didn't offer up many of my favorite songs from Return To The Sea like "Volcanoes" and "Rough Gem", I was more than satisfied with their hour-and-a-half set. Their musicianship and togetherness as a group was unlike any other band I have seen in recent memory. Nick Thorburn showed that this truly is his project, but some of the greatest moments of the show came from the rest of the band members. Watching the interplay of both Chows, while they rattled through a host of instruments ranging from violins to a steel drum to boat chains, was more than amazing. The rhythm section was completely solid throughout the full show, which usually isn't the case with many of today's indie-rock acts. The most intriguing addition to their sound, though, had to be Gregoire's bass clarinet. At one point while he was playing it I looked over at Cereal and found myself shouting, "I never thought I'd ever say this, but he is getting it on that clarinet!"

I am really hoping that they come around again real soon. They really impressed me with their genre-bending sound, and with the amount of music I hear these days, that is not really the easiest thing to do. I was worried that my hopes were too high going into the show, but after 2 minutes of their set, all of my worries disappeared.

Eggs' Rating: 9.4/10 yolks, for not letting me down when my hopes were through the roof, and for making me want more just two days after getting my fix.

For more photos from the show check out our Flickr page

For more videos from the show check out our YouTube page

Eat Your Damn Breakfast!

-Eggs