When I heard that Death From Above 1979 were reuniting, I was excited to say the least. I listened to their album, “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine” all through high school, but kind of forgot about it until the summer when they announced their new tour dates. The day they went on sale, I bought tickets. And it’s a good thing, they sold out and the band added another date in Toronto.
On October 27 and 28 at the Sound Academy, DFA79 came home.
The date was filled with Toronto talent with indie-dance band Nightbox and electro-goth duo Trust opening up the show. By the time Sebastien Grainger and Jesse Keeler got to the stage in shadow, the crowd was huge and they were ready. Breaking out immediately into a wall of sound with the opening bass line of “Turn It Out,” the crowd erupted into cheers and just a little moshing.
Grainger told a story from the previous night of when a fan shouted for a bass solo, and Keeler happily replied that “every song is a bass solo.” And that’s entirely true. DFA79 might be called noise-rock or dance-punk, but the hybrid genres just don’t describe well enough how the duo has been able to create such catchiness and drive with heavy bass lines.
Half-way through the set, the duo began playing more of the hits off of “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine.” When the bass tones of “Little Girl” began, the crowd went crazy, everyone began moving towards the stage. Keeler and Grainger then followed up with a string of crowd, and personal, favourites like “Blood On Our Hands.” When “Romantic Rights” moved into the last half of the song, Grainger screamed and Keeler just kept pushing.
It was loud and it was insane. Seeing as how crazy the crowd was just at the start of the show, it was hard to see how the rest of the night would go, but it just got wilder. At one point, someone jumped on stage, hugging both Grainger and Keeler before being dragged out of the venue.
It’s this loyalty that got both shows sold out. If it was nostalgia that brought people in, it was the band’s complete energy that kept them. Not once did the band pause more than 30 seconds between songs, everything progressed into something crazier. Even after the formal setlist, the lights on stage stayed lit and the sound remained until they came back on stage to play a three song encore which finished with “Losing It.”
Silhouetting the band during the whole performance, a white banner above their heads showed a tombstone, that read DFA79 2001 – 2006. So maybe this is just a reunion tour. The band hasn’t said anything about creating new music together. But whatever the show was, the boys were definitely warmly greeted back home in the city.
Photos by Sarah Rix © 2011 | archdukes.wordpress.com
johnson
01/08/2012
yo i was the guy who got on stage.