The Besnard Lakes - December 5, 2007

Bowery Ballroom [11 pm] ~$13

My chance to catch a band I was glad to find in 2007. The Besnard Lakes played a perfectly tight set of some of their best work. Their textured guitars and vocal harmonies set the mood perfectly. One song after another was an intense jam of high quality. From my recollection, they opened with "Rid the Rails" (perfect opener), and went on to play (not in this order) "Disaster", "And You Lied to Me" and "On Bedford and Grand" (to names those I can remember). They played two or three songs off of their first album, and each song they played sounded excellent between my ears. The only off moment of the night was the closer of their only encore. After setting a beautiful atmosphere with the layered, psychedelic sounds, they closed their "last show of 2007" with Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun." Technically it was a great cover, and the drummer's vocal performance was exceptional, but for me it was a strange choice. I turned to Doug during the cover and, "This is really strange", and he just laughed. What a strange way to strip the ballroom of the original atmosphere the band created for us.

Oh, and the opening act, Peter from Peter, Bjorn and John was bloody awful.