The Weakerthans / Fembots / The Awards

live in Quebec City (2003)

SatanicSurferz

Lets get through the opening bands rather quickly, as I was there on that night for The Weakerthans only.

First of all, it was Halloween that night, so some people were costumed for that occasion. The show was at the ANTI, in Quebec City. This venue is awfull. It's too small, dirty, and damn too hot in there. I had seen The Weakerthans two times before, and they used to play in bar, where I think they fit better. (Club Soda-Montreal-2002 and Kashmir-Quebec City-2001)

Anyway, the first band was The Carnation, which I had never seen before. And I must say that they didn't impress me at all. They sounded like boring emo to me… and since I don't like emo, I mostly waited for the next band.

The next one was The Awards, a band from Quebec City. They were better than The Carnation, but not that good. The music was alright, but the singer had such a high-pithced voice, which sounded emo again to me. If emo is your bag, maybe the first two bands were very good, but to me, it was rather average.

The third band was Fembots from Toronto. They are hard to categorize. It had a lot of a country feel, and the singer had almost the same voice as John K. Samson. They had keybords, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, fiddle, xylophone and lots of other weirds intruments. It was not punk at all, but they were interesting and original to say the least. The Weakerthans' drummer was playing with them (xylophone, banjo, keyboard, and other instruments I don't even know the name). They were not great, but I enjoyed them better than the first two bands.

Finally came The Weakerthans! As always, they put a killer show. They really seem to enjoy playing, specially Stephen Carroll, which is one hell of a guitar player. John K. Samson, with is voice, always create a good mood. The crowd was suspended to his lips. They played lots of songs from the new album Reconstruction Site, which is a good thing, since it's an awesome album. They played many songs from Left And Leaving too, but we had to wait at the end of the show to hear songs from Fallow (Diagnosis and Confessions only). Since I had seen them two times before, it didn't bothered me that much. Their sound live is as closest to their studio albums as possible. They didn't make any mistake, all was sounding great. The are really talented musicians. What else? Even if the opening bands were average, The Weakerthans only WERE easily worth the price of the ticket (it was 13$ only).

Here's the complete set they played:
01- Psalm For the Elks Lodge Last Call
02- Aside
03- Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault In Paris, 1961)
04- Pamphleteer
05- Reconstruction Site
06- Uncorrected Proofs
07- Plea From A Cat Named Virtute
08- This Is A Fire Door Never Leave Open
09- The Reasons
10- Elegy For Elsabet
11- Left And Leaving
12- Watermark
13- The Prescience Of Dawn

Encore:
14- One Great City!
15- Diagnosis
16- Confessions Of A Futon-Revolutionist
17- Everything Must Go!